Grab It By The Horns
by Mercedes Wolfcry
Summary: I was a soldier in Iraq, tough as nails and prepared for anything. And then I died. But I came back, as some sort of wacked out alien baby that crash-landed. I'm not prepared for this! Rated MA Sunstreaker/oc/Sideswipe
1. Life is Unexpected

Most people take life for granted. They think they'll live long happy lives, and are naive to what perils and sorrows infiltrate our world. Now, you may say 'but they watch the news!' or 'they listen to the radio and read newspapers'. That's true. They do. But they don't take anything they hear, watch or read to heart. They'll always say, 'Who would do such a thing?' or 'I feel so sorry for that family'. As I said, most people take life for granted. But in reality, life can be long and happy, or short and painful. Nobody really knows when they're gonna die. Hell, I didn't know I was. One second their alive and chatting, and the next they could be hit by a bus, or walk out an open window. But enough of my ramblings about the unfairness of life.

I learned a lot from my mama before lung cancer took her from me, one is that life is like a bull; it's gonna buck ya', throw ya', and smash your face into the dirt, anything to throw ya' off. But you pull yourself up, and get back on that bull, and get ready for the next ride of your life. Another; again, life is like a bull, you got to grab it by the horns and ride it like it's your last day alive. You can tell that mama came from the south, Virginia to be precise. She died in Lebanon Oregon, a long ways from home.

One thing I learned from my own experiences is that life is unexpected. Like for one, I didn't plan on dying in Iraq and waking up as some sort of baby from the newer Transformers movie. But, like I said earlier; I grabbed what life I had been given again by the horns and held on for dear life.


	2. Death is easy, life is regretable

I was born and raised in Oregon, used to the cold temperatures and rain. I loved the rain. So as you can imagine, I'm not quite literally dying in the heat but I'm close to it here in Iraq. I hate it here, but that's where I'm stationed, I have to deal with it, even if there are tons of things I miss from my home. I miss those rainy nights, and even the thunderstorms that always killed the power. I miss the rolling fields, the trail riding, and even the cattle roping. Hell, I even miss running through the field away from our local psychotic cow.

Yep, I used to be a rancher, and now I'm in the army. My Mama and my grandparents and I all lived up on a mountain with a bunch of property. My Uncle's family used to live up there too, but he wanted to move back into town so I didn't get to see much of my cousins though I loved them lots and I was really close to my oldest cousin Skylar. My grandparents loved me lots too, that's why they didn't make me move in with then when my mama died. I couldn't leave my home, not for all the money in the world.

I was eight when mama found out she had lung cancer. She managed to beat it twice, but I was sixteen when my mama died because it struck again. It was hard, then, I was young and I didn't really cope with it well and it through me totally off kilter. My grades had dropped, I became easily angered which I had never been. I was always a gentle giant. But when my mother's Labrador Lucky got sick from grief, I made myself get back on the saddle of life and grabbed it by those horns to make my own decisions. The movies from Transformers helped too; since my mama loved them I watched them in her memory. Eventually I began to like them too. My grades picked up, the animals were a little happier, though Lucky died anyways because he was quite the old dog and never made the recovery, my other canine companion Storm started to play with me and join me for walks again. Well, as much as she could do, she was as old as I was.

In the end, she died too. But I knew she would, and she died peacefully asleep in my room in front of my door. Guarding me even in her final days. In and out like a gentle breeze.

When I graduated high school, I found my calling in the military. My Uncles family moved back up to the ranch and took my house to take care of it, and when I left, my little cousin Skylar gave me an iron bracelet he had made in welding class. I had him keep it so that I would always come back. He gave it back to me after the first time I came back though, saying he felt better if I had it.

So I spent a fairly long time in training, and was sent out when I hit the age of Twenty-one as a ground trooper. I was given the standard military machine gun, grenades, and the choice of a second weapon. I chose a simple hand gun.

So that's how I started out, I've been on tour twice, aka I got to go home for about two months twice, and this is my third time being here. It's been years really, I'm now Twenty-eight, turning Twenty-nine in two months, on February Thirteenth to be exact.

And to where I am now, well, it's an unusually cool day here in Iraq, topping off at ninety eight degree's. Usually it's higher, around hundred and eight degrees. I'm walking the perimeter of our base as usual, when my radio starts squalling. I fumble a bit to get the radio, since the baggy clothes we have are heavy and bulky it makes it difficult to find something in all the pockets.

"Pick up 'Strider, pick up please." I could hear my best friend's voice. Kendal was always radioing me from the tower, she was in charge of communications and letting us know if someone spots something. I and she were total opposites, but we licked together and then it was like sisterhood. She was the twin sister I never got to have.

When I got the radio out, I activated and calmly asked, "Nightstrider here, what's the problem Chatterbox?" Funny thing about my military name, since my actual name is Nichole Surbaugh, and I didn't like it, I went by strider for a long time, and when I would take my nightly walks, people started calling me Nightstrider. As for Kendal's name, its self explanatory; She talked so much that the commander gagged her to shut her up.

"The problem is that I'm on lunch break and so are you, and you aren't here to keep me company." Kendal gripped cheerfully at me.

I sighed and turned on my heels to jog back to the tower, "All right, tell Bumblebug to come take over for me please. ETA, forty five seconds or so." I responded.

"Already done, 'Bug should be passing you soon. He's disgruntled; he doesn't want to go out in the heat." Kendal's laugh floated over the radio.

I passed 'Bug not ten seconds later. He was indeed disgruntled, and wasn't going to acknowledge my presence. Fine by me. "Just passed Bug. Looks like someone put curdled Mack and cheese in his socks again." I said. I could see Kendal now, standing under the shade of the tower looking at me. She waved. I waved back and put my radio away.

When I came to a stop beside her, I propped a hand on my hip and grinned down at her. Kendal was roughly Five foot Six thin as a twig with a light complexion that never tanned or burned with straight brown hair and eyes; and I stood at Six foot three, a little more filled out and muscled like any military woman was, with a bright red sunburn on my skin and curly brown hair with blue eyes.

Kendal gave me a searching look and then a happy grin, "Come on Nichole. I heard that the cooks finally have something edible besides chilly in!" she propped her gun up on her shoulder in its holster, a semiautomatic rifle, and snagged my arm to tug me away.

It took us a bit, but we walked to the other side of camp and into the food tent. I clipped my gun out of the way with the safety on, and strolled up to the counter to order. I stopped through when I saw who was cooking, "Sean's cooking?" I asked.

Sean grinned at me and winked. "you betcha' bippies ladies." Seans old, and fun to be around, but he's a horrible cook.

I walked away from the counter and to one of the tables, listening to Sean gripe at me about not trusting his cooking, "no, no, I'm not eating what he cooks." I said. I flopped down on at a table and watched as Kendal got a suspicious grey blob. "you know," I pointed out as I propped an arm on the table and rested my head in it, "that your gonna feel that later right?"

Kendal waved me off and took a bite. "Mmm, tastes good!" She exclaimed happily. She ate it in earnest, while I watched with a disgusted look.

"I'm not babysitting you in the bathrooms when you get food poisoning one of these days." I grunted to her.

She pointed her spork at me and scolded me, "you have no taste."

I narrowed my eyes at her, "I think you're the one with no taste." I retaliated. After a moment I said, "And don't point your dirty spork at me. I want nothing to do with the love child of a spoon and a fork."

She snorted at the comment that I made. "Whatever." She said and went to finish eating the goop.

We were silent for a moment, until an alarm sounded off. It wailed relentlessly, and surprised poor Kendal so much she actually dropped her spork. We were up and running not a moment later.

I unclipped my gun, and Kendal did hers too. I could hear gunfire, and not five seconds later we charged into the middle of a gun fight.

The fight lasted a long time; well it seemed like it anyways. I'm not going to bore you with the multiple dives I didn't, how many rebels I shot, or how many grenades I threw. I will tell you though, what made me die.

I had just dived down behind one of the conveniently placed sand bags and was reloading my gun. The rebels were moving to another part of the camp. Kendal was behind the one across from me, sniping anyone she could shoot. I was guarding her, since sniping took a lot of focus. I had just gotten my clip in, when I saw the guy coming up behind her. He raised his hand gun, and cocked it ready to fire.

You know those moments where people claim they weren't in control of their bodies? Well those happen. I just jumped up and ran for her and ended up taking a whole clip of hand gun ammo to my torso instead of her. I killed the guy though; my finger squeezed on the trigger as I went down and peppered the guy with bullets. Adrenaline can do that too you.

Death is sudden, it happens in the blink of an eye, and sometimes you know you're going to die. I knew I was, the moment the siren first went off. I suppose everyone knows that they're gonna die, deep down in some primal instinct. I just didn't know how I was gonna die. And the life flying before your eyes thing when you die? Not true, nope, you're too focused on the fact that dying hurts like someone shoved a red hot poker up your ass to think on what you've done.

Kendal turned on a dime, her face shocked as I hit the ground with a thud. My face was shocked too I bet. Kendal skittered over and tried to drag me back into to the protection of the sand bags. I helped as much as I could, skittering my legs in a funky crab walk until she was satisfied at where I was. My shirt was ripped open not a moment later to access the damage. According to Kendal who was rambling in a terrified tone, I had at least eight gunshot wounds that could be considered point blank, some were through and through like the ones on my shoulder areas. Others were still ricocheting through my organs. She said my lungs were gonna fill with blood, and as if that was the key phrase, I started hacking it up.

"No, no, no! You can't die!" Kendal cried out. I dint plan on dying, but eight gunshots will do that too ya'.

"Oh, god, what 'appened to 'er?" Sean asked as he came out from nowhere. If I would have had my gun on me, I would have shot him. I closed my eyes when the pain raged through me. I guess I had bled out all my adrenaline.

"She's been shot, lots, Sean oh my god, Sean cant you do anything for her?"

"I'll get a med kit." His footsteps faded.

I felt something hot touch my hands as they lay in the sand. I knew it was blood, unless I peed myself, which was unlikely. Using the blood to slicken my wrist, I let my bracelet slide off, and snagged it in my hand. Kendal seemed to take notice of what was in my hand, and she took it.

"Giv't to Skylar…" I gurgled to her. Death was painful, but easy. Life was hard. "T'll him, I'm srry. I dint mke it."

"You can give it to him yourself when we get you patched up." Kendal said to me. "Now stay with me. Sean! Where the hell are you with that med kit!" Kendal called out loudly.

I could hear feet pounding back, and looked blurrily over to see Sean come skidding to my side. The med kit was set on my legs, and as I closed my eyes again, I could feel them digging around in it. Not a moment later, I felt careful fingers start trying to staunch the flow of blood. I could feel blood running from my nose now.

"OH SHIT! GRENADE!" I heard someone screech. About three seconds later, all three of us were airborne. Sean took the brunt of the explosion, and when I blinked I could see him unconscious and bleeding in front of me. Kendal was there, scrabbling to get up and get to me.

"Save Sean." I said quietly to her as she reached me and flipped me over.

"No, I'm gonna save you!" she snapped at me.

I roared at her with all the oxygen I had left in my lungs, "_Save Sean!_" as much as I wanted to live, I knew I couldn't. I've seen people get shot full of bullets and die in a matter of seconds, almost painlessly. I don't get the pleasure.

Kendal's eyes watered up, and she gave a small sob but went to Sean and began working on him.

I smiled slightly as my heart gave its last few beats. Some are meant to die, some are meant to live. I regret that I wouldn't be able to see my family, to hug my Papa and Gramma or give Skylar a noogie and play in the pool with sweet little Micky. I'll never get to meet my newborn cousin, whose name I don't even know. It had been my time to die, and so I relinquished my hold on those horns relictantly, and got the life stomped out of me by the hoofs of life.

I simply faded from existence.


	3. Unprepaired

Funny thing about death, is that no one knows where your really gonna go when you're gone. Some say that you go to heaven, flying on wings with the angels and singing behind those pearly gates if you're good, and you go stomp the underworld if you're bad. Some say you get trapped in a good memory for the rest of eternity, or you go to all your family members that have died before you, like some sort of family reunion. Others say you just fade to black. Some say you haunt the earth forever until the end of eternity.

My mama always told me, that when you die, god talks to you and asks you if you want to go to heaven or be reborn. Mama had wanted to go to heaven; she hated how the world was becoming. Between you and me, I hope she got there. She was a kind woman, cried herself to sleep when she accidently hit a dog with the old GMC Jimmy.

All I know is that I just kind of tried to go to the light, but it seemed to get further and further away. "_Wait_!" I called.

"_**Child.**_" A voice boomed. I stopped moving so I could turn myself around and look to it. I didn't see anything except for a large floating ball of light. "_**Do you want a second chance at life?**_"

Did I really want another chance at life? To see my family again, to hold my new cousin? To eventually get married and have children of my own? "_Yes. Who are you?"_ I answered truthfully.

"_**My name is Primus. You will not be who you used to be. Nichole Surbaugh is dead, no longer alive."**_ The voice said ominously.

"_Then who will I be?"_ I asked. "_if not myself, will I be someone else? Just a memory or something? Not in control of myself?"_

The voice let out a soothing croon and I floated closer to it to see if I could see any shape inside the ball, "_**Tell me child, what is it you want to happen if you go back?**_"

When the voice asked me that, I knew there had to be a twist or something. Something that wouldn't be known until I was awake or back to the living; whatever you want to call it. I thought for a moment. "_I want to be me, my memories, in control of myself. I don't want to share a soul with something else. And … I don't want to be helpless. I want to be able to at least defend myself. And others."_

"_**Done."**_ The voice said. "_**Now come to me little one, and I'll tell you what you're going to be doing."**_

I like most humans would have, just floated along and went with it. I went to the light, and when I touched it, I suddenly found myself in the grip of some sort of giant robot. We were in some sort of desert place. The robot looked like something from the Bay movie Transformers. My mouth dropped open with an audible pop, and I squeaked.

The robot rumbled with a chuckle. "**Do I frighten you, little one? I did not mean too, but being this old and this big has its disadvantages when it comes to talking to your species.**"

I didn't say anything. The robot rumbled again with a laugh. "**Now, I'm here to tell you what you're going to do. Nightstrider, you're going to become an Autobot. Well, in time of course."** He seemed to keep a little joke to himself. I went to say something, but I couldn't get anything out. **"That is your new name. You won't be the same human anymore, 'Strider. Anyways, you will have weapons, claws on both hands and feet, and a shoulder cannons. You will be small, but you'll grow. They won't be able to understand what you're saying for a little bit, maybe a few hours."**

I seemed to be able to find my voice. "What if I don't want this?"

The robot, Primus, seemed to glower at me. "_**You sealed your fate the moment you accepted my deal. Now go, Nightstrider, go and embrace your new found destiny.**_"

I felt a vacuum affect. I felt myself get sucked away, into a seemingly infinite blackness. The old bot was crazy, I knew it, and I would be back as a human before I knew it.

Slowly though, I was beginning to feel. It was hot, oh so hot. It burned actually, my skin that was pressing to whatever it was. My arms, and legs were cramped, and I bet I looked like I was in a fetal position. I felt… heavier and smaller somehow. Just what did I look like now? I felt hungry, to be honest, and tired.

When I opened my eyes, I could see metal. Lots of metal and wires, and controls. It was strange, so I simply blinked. Across my vision, there seemed to be lights flashing. One said, 'Tank low need refueling' another said 'Prepare for crash landing in Tranquility'. Wasn't Tranquility the name of the town in Transformers? And better yet, why the hell am I crash landing when I should be waking up in a hospital in Iraq or someplace?

It didn't take long to realize that, by all the bumping and bouncing, I had landed. Now, how to get out of this metal prison? I couldn't move much, so I moved around what I could. I got my little prison rocking, but then I stopped moving. I saw a little button, and managed to press it. I started moving again, frantic now, my arm was made of metal, and it seemed to have these odd metallic braces on it, like armor. I shouldn't have armor! I stopped suddenly. I could hear something outside. The sound of heavy footsteps. Nothing in this part of the continent would make those sounds. The wall in front of me opened up, and I could see many layers of open walls, but then it came to one that seemed stuck.

I suddenly felt my prison rise upwards, and started moving again. "Let me out!" I called. But my voice sounded weird. Robotic. And then I realized that I had let lose a series of clicks, chirps, and warbles. My prison was set down again, not exactly softly but not roughly ether.

I could hear voices outside. "Ratchet, it seems that the door is jammed. Can you fix it?" I heard a deep voice inquire. I had heard it before, I know it. I knew that name that was said…

"I can, Optimus, but I need you to move." Called another deep voice. It wasn't quite as deep as the first though. This must be Ratchet. I heard footsteps approach and some leave.

Wait… Optimus and Ratchet? Those were from the transformers show. Holy Shit! That old robot put me in a damn movie! Now I can't see my family! And I'm surrounded by big fucking robots!

"Do you know who it is, prime?" There was a slight English accent to the voice

"No, I do not." Optimus answered.

Not too much later, the jammed door was removed by a set of gargantuan hands. I could see the clear night sky for a moment. Oh, shit! A large yellow face popped its head above the door way. I recognize the face anywhere. Ratchet.

Ratchet turned away, "Prime! You have to see this!" Ratchet turned back to me. His eyes narrowed and I felt a tingling sensation over my body. "It's a sparkling!" a quieter muttering, "I can't tell the color though, or the gender. It looks young from what I can see though." What the hell's a sparkling? And I have boobs, t should be easy to tell I'm a girl! Even if I have a robotic arm.

There was several intakes, and then a set of hurried footsteps. The large head of Prime was suddenly there next to Ratchet. "Primus! It is!" A large hand appeared, and by the yellow color, I could tell it was Ratchet.

I hissed at him, "Leave me alone you big behemoth!"

"Hm, it doesn't seem to trust us." Ratchet stated. Ratchet's hand left, and was replaced by Prime's.

"Come on little one, we won't hurt you." He cooed. Nice voice. Hmm.

"No!" I rejected.

"Prime, it isn't going to come out, let me grab it." Shit, Ratchets going to grab me! No! I don't want to! His hand darts in and manages to snake under me. Moments later, I'm in the air, being cradled to a large yellow chest. Then the tingling feeling again, "It seems healthy, hungry, but healthy, though its firewall leaves a lot to be desired. We need to get it to the temporary base so I can get the poor thing some energon."

I managed to get myself turned around. I didn't want to be held! "Let me down!"

A large black robot appeared next to Optimus and peered at me, "Look, Ratch, it likes you." He teased.

"Like him my ass." I grumped. I scrunched my face up, why the hell weren't they answering me! I'm trained and prepared to kill! To protect! Not be doted on like some infant! Cant they see I'm a fully grown adult here? I turned back and caught my reflection in the 'bots chest windows. I wasn't prepared for this.

Instead of a brunet human girl looking at me, I can see a small robot covered in black armor with blue flames with wide blue eyes looking at me. It had these weird little antenna things that were currently pinned back like it was horrified.

I screamed. It screamed. Then I realized that it wasn't screaming, I was. It was me.


	4. Innermost Workings

And let me tell you this; Autobot ears are increasingly sensitive. As soon as I screeched, I was almost literally tossed to Prime. Prime must had the fore sight to like shut off his ears or something because he wasn't bothered by the scream. The other two, on the other hand, had their hands clasped over where their ears would be and were trying to stop the ringing. Prime was busy shushing me and from what I could tell, trying to keep me from crying or something. And let me tell you, I was freaking out inside. How many people go from being a dead six foot tall _human adult_ to being a living three foot tall _robot baby._

"Easy little one, Ironhide and Ratchet didn't mean to scare you." Prime cooed to me. He held me to his chest plates and despite the fact that even my own ears were ringing from my scream, I found it slightly comforting. Like a hug. From a giant robot that could smash me like a bug in the blink of an eye.

"It's not them that scared me; I scared the shit out of myself!" I said loudly. "Normal humans don't look like robots!"

The large black one was the first to straighten up. He took a few steps forward and held out a monstrous hand for me. "Let me see the sparkling Prime. It'll ride with you for now, since you have the most room in your cab."

"I'm not an it damn it, I'm a she! Are these bots blind or something!" I grumped again.

Prime seemed uncertain, as though he thought I would have another screaming fit if I went anywhere near the behemoth again. "I don't know Ironhide. It seems its terrified of you."

"I'm not terrified of him." I snorted, catching the attention of Ratchet. I felt that tingling again, and remembered he's the medic. I sighed. They seemed to think I was an infant of some sort. I can act, I've played house with my cousins enough to know how to act like an infant. Ironhide was trying to reason that I needed to get used to the large robot anyways, since I would be seeing him a lot along with Ratchet. This was so going to damage my dignity.

I reached my arms up in the typical children's 'uppie' visage at the Mech, I think one of my old buddies had called them, named Ironhide. I even flexed my tiny metal hands for emphasis. When they fell silent, I lost the rest of my dignity and cooed to the mech.

Ironhide's face stretched into a grin, I think. All those weird metal plates that seem to make up their faces had moved a bit, and seemed to hold a smiling tone to them. So yes, let's call that a grin for the sake of my sanity. "You see prime, I bet it was just the fact that it was being held by an unknown mech. See? It wants me." He said smugly.

Ratchet appeared at Ironhide's side when I was passed to his hands. "Hold it close to your chasis, I want to check its gender real fast." I was pressed up next to a 'chasis' which was their chest I guess, when I started struggling. I did not want to be sexed! That's violating! And there were these uncomfortable bulges in my back, like little wings or something that were being squished against Ironhide's chest.

Ratchet's fingers transformed into these tiny little tool things, and began poking around on my chest. I squeaked angrily, he was violating my privacy, when there were two little clicks and my chest sprung open of its own accord. My curiosity got the best of me, and I looked as Ratchet investigated. Hell with it, he's a medic; it's like a doctor, only for aliens.

There was a small casing, which I could see had a glowing throbbing light blue light in there. I'm guessing that would be my heart? It had cables and wires running through, that all seemed to pulse like veins with each beat of the light. Then there was a small empty box like thing next to my heart, it looked like it carried things. Maybe like a trunk or something? There was a small tank looking thing, and seemingly various organs, and then there was a large tank in my lower body where my bladder and stuff would normally be. And then there was a small tank below that, small like the higher up tank. I wonder if one of those is my stomach.

Ratchets tools probed a bit, and stopped with it came to the large tank. His tool brushed against it, and it actually flexed beneath his touch. Okay, ow? Don't poke people internals. I protested by whining. Whoa, whoa, whoa, so my organs were soft like human organs? "Primus," he sounded like he was in awe of something, "Well, what do you know? It's a femme." Femme… wasn't that like, in some other language female? Yes, yes it was. Now let me close up please, I feel like I'm flashing the lot of you.

When my innermost workings were closed up again, I let myself go still so that Ironhide would loosen his hold. He did, and as I found it slightly troublesome to get myself to bend like this, I got myself cross legged leaning half on Ironhide and half on my own. Sitting was straining cause of the weight on my back, but it was manage able. I did get a good look at my feet. They were odd, they looked human with five toes and all, but there were small silver claws poking out of the end of each toe.

"How old is she?" my holder requested. I glanced at him, and caught sight of what was weighing me down. I had little door like wings. They seemed to flutter with my every changing thought.

Ratchet made a humming noise. "I'd say maybe two vorns? But she had her armor, and sparklings don't get any form of that until they're eight vorns."

I didn't make a peep. I was getting hungrier now, and there was a warning sign flashing across my screen saying that my 'tank' was dangerously low. The mech's were discussing my name, and I let out a shrill whistle to get their attention. "Oi, I'm a hungry girl over here! Can we get this show on the road please? And stop by a burger joint?" I complained. I ran a hand across my stomach area to get my point across.

I heard prime chuckle, and the loud booming of his voice actually rattled my armor. I blinked widely at him. "Sounds like someone's hungry." He chortled.

I watched as he changed back into the tall flame covered Peterbuilt semi that had fascinated me when I first watched the movies. His door popped open, and Ironhide knelt down. I found myself getting set gently in the cab. When I was in, I watched the walls of the cab disappear, and the seat completely cover the bottom part of the inside of Prime, like a giant bed or something.

"Now you can roll around or whatever and not fall off anything, and you have more space. How's that sound, young one?" I heard Optimus's voice like surround sound.

I didn't respond, I simply adjusted myself so I could flop down on my stomach and wait for the drive to be over.


	5. Click in, Click out

_**(So, this is probably one of the few author's notes I'll do before a story, but it's to let who ever reads through here that Reviews are appreciated and completely welcome. So, I can't wait to hear from you if you do decide to review.)**_

I had laid there and thought about my situation. I died in Iraq, talked to some psychotic old robot who claims he's this Primus dude, woke up crash landing as a baby robot. Then I'm pretty much harassed, looked at my own organs, and had myself sexed. Yup. Things are going _completely_ normal.

My mind wandered to my family. How much time had passed? Did any really at all? How- how did my family take my death? What happened to Kendal and Sean? I could only imagine. I could see Kendal trying to save Sean, and Sean dying, and I can see Kendal bent over Sean fixing him up, and one of the rebels coming up behind her. The rest should be self explanatory.

My mind wandered over the good memories that we had in the army. The pranks we pulled, like the curdled Mack and cheese in 'Bugs socks. We even managed to prank our commander Elana Williams A.K.A Calisto. Why Calisto, I won't ever know, but anyways, we managed to carry her whole bunk out and set it in the kitchen while she was sleeping on it. She wasn't too happy come breakfast time though.

My Mama… I never got to say goodbye to her grave. Maybe it's still here in this universe?

I must have ended up falling asleep or something, because I ended up waking up to the cab of the semi who was Optimus tilting a little to let someone in. I was still half asleep and the dreams of the fights I had in Iraq were still rumbling around in my mind, and I heard a female voice address Optimus and I recognized it. The voice of Mikaela Banes from the movie.

"She's so cute, Optimus. What's her name?" I heard his seat squeaking as she slid further inside. I myself was about in the middle of the cab.

His voice came from all around me, "I don't know Mikaela. I'm sure we can find one for her though." I have a name damn it. It's Nichole, but since I was told I have a new name, I guess I'm Nightstrider now. "Be careful, don't startle her. I know what a startled sparking can do to one's audio receptors, and from what I could see earlier, she as having nightmares. Of what, I won't ever know."

It was silent for a moment and I was falling back asleep and was in the middle of the dream where I died when I felt a touch on one of my door wings. My eyes shot open and I froze while looking to the girl. My door wings jerked upward removing Mikaela's hand from my wing. My body tensed, and the training and abuse I dealt with in boot camp flooded my mind. For a minute, I didn't blink, breath or move as I scrutinized her.

If she was still here, then this was probably before the ROTF Movie, way before, since they weren't on that island. I had seen the third one, and was not impressed with the blond, even if she did tell that Megatron dude that he was gonna become some old primes bitch. And I wasn't too happy about Mikaela leaving Sam ether, but whatever. Bay had some issues in the movie I'm guessing.

There was a tense silence. No one moved, inside or outside, like someone told anyone who was outside that there was a bit of a tense moment inside the semi's cab. Mikaela looked like she wanted to ether run, or move away from me. Neither she did. Then I let my body relax.

I shifted myself to sit up, and lost my balance. Mikaela steadied me with a hand to my chest and then she froze, like she was afraid she had just offended me. I looked at her hand for a moment, before looking at her face again. Since I lost all my dignity when I had to coo at the mech before, I just resigned myself to cooing to the girl.

I guess she took that as a sign to scoop me up, because she did just that, and then slid out of Optimus. My metal skin wasn't as adhesive to human skin, and I kept almost slipping as she climbed down, but we managed it.

When we were on the ground, I noticed lots of things. Like for one, there was a yellow and black striped Camaro, and a bright pink motorcycle parked alongside Ironhide, and a boy I recognize as Sam walked to us from where he stood next to Ratchets car form. I sent him a long look while everyone transformed. I glanced a bit, and saw we were in a huge building that was sectioned off.

When Optimus was finished, he stooped down to pick me up. I was eagerly put in his hand, and then I was carted into the air. His fingers came to curl around me, and I found myself wishing very badly that I was on the ground.

"And who is this?" came a movie clip from the Camaro I recognized as Bumblebee.

Optimus's other hand ran a finger down my back, and it felt weird, and then he said, "A little femme."

I chirped up at Optimus, who looked down to me. I set a hand on my abdomen and asked, "Do I have to starve here?" While I don't deny that these bots are indeed smart and advanced, they seem to be a bit absent minded at times.

"Ratchet?" Optimus inquired. He offered me out. Okay, I don't really want to be fed by the medic. All hospital food I had ever eaten tasted nasty. Bleh. I gave a displeased grunt.

"I need to talk to you while we prepare it." Ratchet took me and then deposited me in a stiff Bumblebee's arms. What am I, a Chihuahua to be passed around?

When they left, Ironhide joined Bumblebee in looking at me. I stared back for a few minutes, and then gave a sigh. I wanted down. I started squirming to be let go, and poor Bumblebee thought he did something wrong and set me down faster than I could have ever thought next to his foot. To let him know that was what I wanted and I was happy, I let my hand touch his foot briefly in a pat, and then I stared at the humans who had joined us while we had been staring at each other.

Ironhide went to go see what was taking them so long.

I knew I shouldn't do it until I learned what they were, but I decided to 'embrace' my childish wants and just do it. I fudged about with the little flashing lights in my head, and managed to get my weapons online. Bumblebee had been chatting with Sam and Mikaela, but now all three were watching me slide my claws in and out with a loud clink each time. It was quite amusing; to watch them poke holes in the cement each time they touched it. The claws were curled in a wicked curve, like cats claws. I could probably use them for climbing. I had claws in my fingers too, but those didn't make noise when I let them out, and they weren't as long as my toe claws. I found my shoulder blasters too. They popped out with a typical transformation sounds.

The only problem was I didn't know how to fire them. I dinked with them a bit, getting frustrated, and I could tell by the snickers of Sam that he thought my twitching door wings were amusing. I never had any problems firing guns when I was human, but then and again, this was an alien gun. I knew nothing about it. I gave one frustrated squeak and just willed the damn things to fire.

Fire they did. I had been sitting there, then suddenly there was a large crack from both shoulders and I was flat on my back some fifteen feet away. I had ended up smashing my door wings, and damn, did it hurt. I didn't even have time to yelp.

"What a rush, let's do it again…" I murmured.

I could hear the sound of hurrying feet, and I felt the ground thumping my body up and down as the mechs that had been doing whatever came running in. I was actually kinda shocked to be honest with you. I was scooped up by Bumblebee though, and while he was indeed gentle, he still snagged my tender door wings and enticed a muffled whimper from me. I was passed to Optimus so that he could calm me when I started crying. I have to say, it hurt a lot, but not quite enough to make me cry. I could hear Optimus's engine running loudly in his chasis. Maybe it was the fact that I was a baby in their terms, or the fact that I was 'embracing' my childish side but I found it soothing. Like a big cat purring in your ear. I could feel Ratchet scanning me.

"What in the pit happened here bumblebee?" Ironhide asked roughly.

Sam answered for him, "We had been talking, but we heard this little clicking noise repeatedly, and found little silent one over there playing with her claws at Bee's feet. When she got bored with those, she played with her gun thingies. She couldn't get them to fire, so we… figured that it… would be fine…" Sam trailed off.

I heard Ratchet huff as he finished scanning me. "You're lucky she only got some scraped on her door wings. I would have welded your aft to the hanger doors Bumblebee, and you two humans. I would have made you get him down."

My stomach, er… tanks as the flashing screens say, rumbled with want for food. I pushed away from Optimus and ended up curled in the nook of his arm like an infant. My door wings had more than enough space, so they fluttered about unhindered. Ratchet handed Prime something, and upon closer inspection I saw it was a bottle. A very large bottle that was filled with glowing pink liquid and topped with a purple nipple. Umm, that's not food. I don't think… it was in the old animated transformers if I remember right. I sighed. Yep, any dignity that I had regained by playing with my weapons was gone out the window as I found myself resigning to drink the nasty looking pink stuff. But I wasn't going down without a fight.


	6. Wild Thing

I could hear Sam asking Ironhide what the stuff in the bottle was and the following conversation drew Optimus's attention as he adjusted the bottle. I couldn't see jack-squat from here. All I could see was a bit of Ratchet, and then the large bulk of Optimus.

Ironhide responded with a rough, "That's sparkling energon Sam." I heard him shuffling awkwardly away from them. I guess he wasn't used to humans yet. "Ratchet, you handle telling the organics' things like that. I'm going to clean my cannons."

I heard a rough robotic voice from what I'm guessing was Bumblebee taking words from the internet and playing them in an order, "Don't mind him, he's just upset that the human Lennox and his team are out for the night." That explains why the only humans I'd seen had been Sam and Mikaela. I heard Ironhide rumble seemingly angry, but not deny it.

It was silent for a moment, while I'm guessing Sam processed what he was told. Then Mikaela piped up. "So, you guys, like, eat and stuff? What's 'sparkling energon'?"

I saw Ratchet disappear from my vision with a large sigh, and heard his feet walk heavily to the humans. "We have much the same functions as you organic beings." I guess that makes sense, since Bumblebee 'lubricated' on that Simmons guy. "Sparkling energon is our version of you humans baby formula."

There was another silent moment. "So how the hell do you get a baby Autobot?" Sam asked. "Do you build it and program it or something?"

"Oh my god, you just had to ask didn't you!" I griped and cringed slightly. I didn't want to even imagine giant robots doing the wild thing.

"Nothing of the sort Sam." Ratchet answered him rather bluntly. "There are two ways to have a sparkling. The Allspark can bless a spark-bonded pair with a sparkling, or it can be created between a mech and a femme; and sometimes if an implant is involved, two mech's may be able to produce a sparkling."

I heard a rather strangled breath from Sam, Mikaela was silent as I think ether his question or Ratchets question shocked her into a stunned silence. Then he piped up again, with his never ending curiosity, "So how the hell do two bots produce a baby bot then? Exchange wires or something?"

Ratchet was blunt again like he had been in the movie about the pheromones, and I actually cringed again and my door wings twitched downward. "Much the same way you humans interface." He snorted. "Interface rods, and ports. No wires or cables needed."

There was a sudden thump of flesh on metal, and a shrill twitter of 'oh no we broke him' from what I'm guessing was Bumblebee. Then I heard cackling, a very feminine cackle, and then I could hear another thump followed by more cackles and words you couldn't understand but I caught the words 'Sam' and 'faint'. I raised my eyebrows, wait, do I even have eyebrows? I'm guessing that Sam fainted or something? Optimus's face contorted into a worried look.

"Did the human glitch or something?" Came from Ratchet as I heard more shuffling, and assumed that he was looking at Sam or something.

After some talking to by a still giggling Mikaela, everyone was 'assured' that this was a normal reaction to shock for humans. Yeah, wimpy humans. Mikaela wanted to see me be fed, and while I protested, again no one understood me. I could see the worry melt from Optimus's face and he turned his attention back to me.

So here I was laying in Prime's arms like an infant, and he's got this bottle thing about the size of a large calf bottle pinched in-between his fingers and is lowering it to me with a human woman staring down at me curiously from Optimus's shoulder joint spot. In the moments that it took to lower it, the bottle, I took in the serene smile on Optimus's face plates that you never got to see in _any_ of the shows. He looks so happy, like a father getting to feed and hold his new child for the first time.

I seriously think that something is messing with my mind or something, because I would _never_ usually stand for being coddled. Or fed. I didn't even let the nurses feed me in the hospitals if I could help it. If I could lift my arm, they weren't feeding me. But now, some large part of me… _wants_ to be fed and coddled. It's like being in this new body has new instincts. That Primus dude said I would be myself! But, now that I think back, he didn't say that I wouldn't have anything added. Damn him, sneaky old bot!

When the purple nipple was put to my lips, I didn't open at first. I saw Optimus's face fall slightly, as if he thought I didn't want him to feed me. "Come on little one, sweet one, it's just energon. It's full of all sorts of things your young body needs." Optimus cooed quietly to me. His engine rumble faded down just slightly.

God damn it! I don't want to make the big guy feel bad! I'm so gonna regret this later when this tastes nasty! I ended up cooing to the big guy and taking the nipple into my mouth. Oh how wrong that sounded. His face brightened in the biggest shit eating smile I had ever seen, literally since this guys freaking huge, and his engine roared happily in my ears. I figured how to suck with a robotic mouth moments later and let me tell you this.

This 'sparkling energon' was the single strangest thing I had ever eaten in my life, well my human life anyways. It had the oddest taste to it; I couldn't figure out if I hated it or loved it. It tasted somewhat sweet and somewhat tart. I could taste all the minerals in it and I could even taste a light hint of a _gasoline_ of some type. As a human, I think I would have died from the taste of it, but now as a robot, it doesn't really bother me. It actually kind of tastes good. The annoying flashing light went away the moment I started 'refueling'. I drank relatively slow, mulling the unique taste of the energon over in my mind.

I heard an 'aw' sound, "She's so cute Optimus." I heard Mikaela say. I saw several familiar heads appear in the space that I could see. A now awake Sam moved from Bumblebee's shoulder to Optimus's other shoulder, Ratchet scanned me quietly and Ironhide observed me. Quite the sight we must have been, a bunch of robots in a football huddle.

The bottle was only a quarter full by the time I stopped myself from finishing it and Optimus handed it to Ratchet who put it away somewhere. My mother always told me to eat until I wasn't hungry anymore, but don't stuff myself silly or I'd get fat like my great uncle had been before he died from a heart attack. He's been huge, maybe five or six hundred pounds. I really didn't want to see if robots could get fat. The image of a little robot whose cables were bursting plumply out at the seams of its armor filled my mind briefly. That would royally suck to be a fat robot.

"So what'cha gonna name her?" Mikaela asked. The mechs were silent. "How about calling her Blackbird? It's feminine and fits her coloring well." She suggested.

I hissed my negative. I have a name, and it's Nightstrider!


	7. Simple Little Things

The rest of the night wasn't really eventful. Ratchet stole me away from Prime and 'updated my firewall' after plopping me gently on a giant metal slab-bed. Then he tried to 'deactivate' my weapons. Every time he tried to do it, it hurt so bad that my claws would automatically pop out. Ratchet ended up with a nice scratch line through his armor from my toe claws. Serves the bugger right for practically hacking into my brain. Apparently there was some sort of tough ass encrypted code that he couldn't read to get rid of my weapons. That was honestly fine with me, I would rather be able to defend myself then rely on others to defend me, instincts be damned. On a further note, Mikaela didn't give up on trying to name me. Each and every name that was offered was turned down with various noises.

While I was given my 'check up', Mikaela and Sam decided that they wanted to know if robots had organs. While I didn't exactly want anyone poking around in my innards, I was curious about my organs as well. Ratchet flipped the catches that helped hold my chest together, though apparently it could be controlled, and with a small springing noise my chest popped open. Apparently the only reason that they could look at all my organs was because they were all essentially in my chest area since my lower body was maybe three human finger widths. That would change as I got older though, they were informed.

The small casing with the light was apparently my 'spark' or their version of a heart. The cables attached to the casing actually were essentially veins. The empty box was like an incubator, so it did hold things like I guessed; it held the 'sparkling' after it had been 'sparked' so it could grow. Both Mech's and Femme's had this so they could take turns babysitting essentially.

The first small tank was actually my stomach I guess. The 'various organs' were actually my lungs and intestines of sorts and the small tank beneath the large one was a 'waste holder' so my bladder I suppose. How the hell am I supposed to get rid of these wastes? Well, I guess when that comes up we'll cross that bridge… and fall in the pot-holes of humility in my case. I'm gonna admit one thing. The large tank kind of freaked me out. It really did.

I sat still during all of this surprisingly. The humans were close to me, so Sam reached out and set his hand against the large tank making it push in slightly. "What's this and why the hell is it squishy when its metal?"

I grunted in protest, not liking my innards touched. It's weird to have your organs touched, while you would think that there wouldn't be any nerve endings in the organs, but apparently there are actually quite a few there for transformers. I took my hand and gently removed Sam's hand from my organ.

Ratchet studied them for a moment. "I'm assuming you want it in your human terms?"

Mikaela nodded and reached a hand up to rub my helm with. "Yes please." Her hand rubbed an antenna thing and a purring sound rumbled from my open chest. What the shit? I must have had an odd look on my face because I got a laugh from both Humans. Was that another of these new instincts?

Ratchet laid his arms on the giant bed thing and rested himself on his knees so he was closer. "Well, in our terms that would be a sparkling gestational chamber. In your human terms, it would be like your female's wombs and in such, only Femme's have these."

What the fuck? He freaking touched my womb? That's so violating! My chest slammed shut and the catches slit into place again. Sam's face probably mirrored mine as he stared at his hand like it told him it would bite his 'equipment' off the next time he was in his 'happy time'. "Oh. Oh. OH. OH EW!" he squealed much like a girl and began scrubbing his hand on his pants. Yeah, and I'm just _so_ much happier that you touched me there too you buttfuck.

Mikaela touched my antenna and I purred again. "Calm down Sam, we don't need you overreacting and scaring the little one." She left my side not moments later and dragged the dramatic Sam to the other side of the bed to a human ladder. Not much later, I heard their voices disappear into the main room. I went to go after them, but found I couldn't get myself to stand. Holy shit, I just realized that I hadn't stood the entire time I was a robot. So I did the only thing I could do. I crawled slowly.

Ratchet snatched me though, but something on the back of my neck, and set me on his hand. He toted me back out into the main room, and I took a look at a clock on the wall. It was about four in the morning. I could see Ironhide was in his vehicle mode, as were Bumblebee who had the humans sitting in his seats and Prime. Ratchet kneeled next to Prime who opened his door.

"She's updated, though there was nothing I could do for her weapons. It was too tough a code to crack. Got a couple scratches from those claws, those are gonna be nasty when she's older. Now I think it's time for the little lady here to recharge." Ratchet stated as he maneuvered my hanging body into the spacious cab once more with two fingers. His interior was transformed like it had been before on the way here, I noticed as soon as I was let down. "The humans learned the anatomy of a Femme today." He let out a deep chuckle, "Sam almost glitched when he found out the part he touched had been the gestational chamber."

Optimus's voice echoed with mirth and understanding like surround sound as I wiggled away from Ratchet and further into the middle of his transformed seats. My smooth metal body slid easily over the fabric seats as I crawled. "I see."

Ratchet left not a moment later, and then Optimus's door shut. As I settled into the seats for what I figured would be me going to bed, I had a longing for a pillow and a blanket of some type. I was getting rather cold, and it was unpleasant in a metal body that seemed to only make heat from my spark and when I moved. It wasn't that Optimus's seats weren't comfy or warm, but it was just the fact that I was used to it as a human and the part of me that isn't touching the seat gets cold. Things like that, the simple every day human things, aren't going to change overnight, and I don't think my metal arm is gonna make a good pillow.

There was a light knocking on Optimus's door, and it opened to Reveal Mikaela with a small white pillow and a folded up army print blanket. "Can I give her these? I don't know if you guys need them, but it helps us humans sleep, and usually lets children sleep better at night." Oh please, please, _please_ let her do it!

"You may." The simple phrase made me happy. I sat up and looked to her, waiting for her to toss them up.

Mikaela climbed up and crawled across the seat to where I had plopped myself and then took a seat herself. Oh no, she was not gonna do it… was she? "I'll tuck her in, since my best guess is she has no idea what the heck these are." Oh she was! I suppose I can't make a scene though, since I'm probably not supposed to know what those are. Damn it. She guided me back down on my side so I didn't squish my door wings and gently lifted my head so that she could tuck the fluffy white pillow under my head. It felt nice- NO. No it did not. It was humiliating and makes me pissed off.

Oh who am I kidding? It reminded me of when my mother used to tuck me in as a child. I let myself relax, and my door wings sagged tiredly. Mikaela unfolded the blanket and spread it over me, it was rather large and incredibly comfortable and warm for a military issued blanket. I would know, most of the blankets I had in Iraq were rough and itchy, but kept us cool enough during heat waves and warm enough on cool nights.

Remember how I had said my Mama came from the south? Well, she also raised me to have my manners, though I hardly used them. Most of the time they were pushed to the back of my mind; but sometimes they pushed to the forefront of my mind at the most random times and made me do something to express whatever I need to. It's these sometimes that I hate it when the southern manners my Mama drilled into me come into act.

When she turned to go, I reached out and snagged her wrist. She flinched, oops I guess I grabbed too roughly, and turned to look at me. I loosened my hold, cooed apologetically and thankfully to her and nodded. Its usualy the simple things that trigger it, the things no one expects to be thanked for.

She blinked owlishly at me, and then nodded back. "You're welcome?"

I released her hand and tucked my arm back under the blanket and purred. She left afterwards. And I let my thoughts wander to the times up at the ranch as I fell asleep.


	8. Corruption

I had pleasant dreams that night, dreams of being back on the farm, young and playing with the dogs. I dreamt of running through open fields and the surrounding forests on foot and on horseback; of sitting on the front porch with my Mama while she would talk about when she was younger. I dreamt of the things that happened before everything went wrong.

I awoke sometime later, a quick peek at Optimus's dashboard revealed that it was about Ten o'clock in the morning about four hours later then I intended to wake up. I gave a comfortable sigh as I snuggled my face into the pillow I had been given. It was time to wake up, but like any other morning I didn't want to. I gave a grunt and slid the blanket from my warm frame as I sat up. I gave a small stretch of my arms, and my door wings as my half awake body started waking up. It kind of surprised me that Optimus hadn't woken up. Or maybe he had, it was hard to see if they were sleeping in truck form.

I was startled by a low rumbling laugh that echoed around my half asleep self. "Good morning, little one." Optimus's voice cooed to me. "Lennox and his team are waiting to meet you." I guess that says he's been awake for a while.

I simply replied with a good morning coo and put my pillow in my blanket so I could carry both to outside the truck. It proved to be difficult, and I ended up tripping over my hands and knees a few times which enticed a small laugh or sigh from Optimus. When I had it gathered up, I heard Prime's door open. Turning to look, I saw Sam helping Mikaela into the truck.

"Good morning." Mikaela chimed to me followed by a low one from Sam and I cooed in response. She crawled over and retrieved what I had been bundling up and then scooted with it to the door.

I followed slowly, and watched as she handed it down to Sam who set it on the ground and then looked back up and said, "I'll make sure you don't fall while carrying her down okay babe?"

"Rather not risk it." She said and then she turned to me and scooped me up under my arms with a small grunt. I grumbled and squirmed. "Hey now, I'm just gonna pass you to Sam and then follow down so that neither of us fall." She explained. Oh, so I'm gonna be passed around like luggage, huh?

I gave her the dirtiest look I could muster as she positioned herself to hand me down to Sam. Sam sputtered and tried to back away. Yeah, I don't want you holding me ether, bub. "I-I dunno, how about you just climb down with her and-"

"Sam." Mikaela said.

Sam kept rambling. Oh how I wish I had a stepladder and some duct-tape, then I'd shut him up nicely. And take off what lip hair there could have even had. "I'll keep you from falling and stuff, because I don't think that I'm-"

"SAM." Mikaela said a little louder and seemed to make some sort of motion.

The boy seemed to wince, so did I; even Optimus did at the volume her voice was at a close range. Sam stepped forward closer, confirming that Mikaela made a motion. "Yes?" he asked.

She made a simple order. "Take the baby."

He did. I was awkwardly taken into his arms, and I latched on with what strength I have and waited for Mikaela to come down since Sam seemed to have a bit of trouble holding me. The sissy, Mikaela seems to be able to hold me with little to no problem, but then and again she's a bad ass mechanic. How much do I weigh now anyways? I took a peak over Sam's shoulder for the brief ten seconds or so I was there. Ratchet wasn't in sight, so I figured that he was in his med bay thing. Bumblebee was gone, to where I don't know. Ironhide was sitting on the ground over by a group of people who took notice of us when I heard the sounds of Optimus transforming.

I was taken back into Mikaela's arms, and was propped up on her hip like a toddler. We both turned to watch Optimus finish his transformation. It really was amazing, watching all the metal pieces fold in on themselves, and kind of disappear. It used to always amaze me when I would watch the movies; it amazed me how well it was animated so it always flowed fluidly. I would often replay their transformation scenes over a couple of times before continuing with the actual movie.

When he stood tall in his robot mode, he stooped down and held out his hand for me. I was placed in his hand, and when he stood, my claws sprung out and I clung to the plates on his hands. I knew he wouldn't drop me on purpose, but still, the human part of my mind isn't used to being scooped up by giant robots and the such. The sensation is odd enough as it is.

Optimus brought me closer to his chasis and then started carefully across the building to the group of humans. I recognized three of them, one being Lennox himself, some Spanish man called Fig, and the other being Epps the man with a bad toss and ten back pockets. I never did like Epps much, I don't know why. He was funny, I don't deny that, it's just he rubbed me the wrong way. Lennox on the other hand, is a hoot. I loved how he was portrayed and stuff. I saw Epps give some guy the finger as they chatted with Ironhide. That's rude.

"Optimus." Ironhide greeted the Autobot leader when we were seated next to him. His eyes, optics I had been told by my mama at one point, wandered to me in Prime's hand. "Runt." I scowled at him and released my claw hold on Prime's palm.

I was set gently down in front of Optimus's crossed legs. Lennox cast a glance at Optimus and approached. "He's so small. Can I hold him?"

"That's one little dude, dudes." Epps commented as he shifted on his feet. The men behind him cast a cautious glance at the Prime behind me. I wonder what crawled up their ass's. Fig was having a heated discussion with someone else about not using Spanish and taking in English.

I scowled then. Obviously just because I was a robot that automatically made me a guy. Optimus chuckled. "She is indeed small, Major Lennox. If she doesn't fear you, then yes you may hold her." I heard him go back mumbling to Ironhide about some various things.

Epps chose that time to make the most appropriate comment. "Holy shit man, the dude's a dudette." Thank you Sergeant Epps, for pointing out the obvious.

Lennox kneeled down maybe four feet from me and held out a hand, "Hello there baby girl, my name is Will." He smiled slightly.

I heard Epps snort, "Yup, Major Daddy strikes again." There was maybe a second of silence before he men out of my sight began to giggle. Even Ironhide let out a chuckle. "Don't scare the poor thing now." More giggles.

Lennox turned his head slightly and hissed out the side of his mouth, "Shut it Epps. You're no better with your bad habits rubbing off."

I rolled my eyes but crawled to him anyways. He isn't scary. When I was in reach, I sat down and held up my arms in the 'uppie' gesture again. He cracked a grin, and gently scooped me up with a small grunt and settled me on a hip with one arm holding me up. I settled one arm on his shoulder with my dangling feet gripping his thigh to keep them from swinging, and the other hand was set on my hip joint thing as I peaked up and over his shoulders at Epps.

"Hi'ya little thing. I'm Robert Epps." He wiggled his fingers at me. Then he made a face at Lennox. I gave him the finger and arched an eyebrow. Wait… do I even have eyebrows? Or is it just metal plates?

Suddenly Fig spoke up, "Looks like Lennox was right Epps; you're already corrupting the kid. You just got owned by a baby robot." I hid myself from view as there was a round of laughter and the sound of Epps sputtering something incoherent. I gave a small grin.

Lennox turned to face me, "Now that was not nice, sweet little ladies like you shouldn't do that no matter how funny it is." He scolded me! I'm an adult, not some child! Well… I was just acting like one. Damn it. He was with in his right. He reached forward with a free hand and poked my nose. "You're such a cute kid, even for a robot." My tank rumbled slightly, signaling I needed to feed again.

"Now I think it's time we get her some energon for the morning." Optimus rumbled. "I will talk to you later then, Ironhide?"

"Yes." Was the simple reply of the big black behemoth truck.

I was placed back in Optimus's hand, and ended up losing my balance and face-planting on the metal palm when he rolled to his feet. His fingers curled around me when I sat up again as he walked to the med bay area, keeping me cradled to his chasis. Maybe to keep me from rolling off the edge of his palm if I lost my balance again.


	9. Gentle Giant

I was currently sitting on a small corner of the large metal bed thing playing with my claws again. My door wings were drooped in boredom, and I was just making small scratches in the metal of the bed. I hadn't been fed yet and it's been two and a half hours, gosh I hate saying it like that cause I'm not a child that needs to be watched, and Optimus and Ratchet were taking in some sort of clicks and whirrs as Ratchet worked. Next to me on the bed was Bumblebee, who was having his 'vocal processor' worked on. I think it's like a voice box or something. Sam and Mikaela were talking on the other side of Bumblebee about something.

Something caught my eye. The ladder that the humans had used last night was on the corner I was at. I peaked at Optimus, to see he had his back turned, Bumblebee had his optics closed, and Ratchet was busy with his work. Sliding my claws back in, I crawled to the edge and looked. Okay, maybe a good fifteen or twenty foot drop to the floor. Not a shot. Maybe if I had been human with no wings at all and full control of my lower limbs I could have done it. I probably have pulled something anyways, or dislocated my shoulder like the time I fell out of the apple tree at the ranch. Right now I would end up turning myself into a small robotic pancake, though I probably wouldn't die.

I paused for a moment. I don't know if I really should leave. I mean, what happens if I get lost or something, and they get worried or something? Aw shit. There I go, thinking like a child again. NO. I'm not going to listen to this new part of me. The human me would have left long ago. Maybe. Damn it! I need to stop doing that! I'm gonna do it. I turned myself and went to lower myself over the edge. When I was situated on the ladder, I was gonna head down and then my foot slipped.

"Holy robo' shit!" I squeaked when a large yellow hand closed over me and caught me by something on my neck area.

I was swung around and held in front of a familiar silver plated face surrounded by yellow. I blinked. Bumblebee blinked. "And where were _you_ going little miss?" the voice of a woman floated over my ears from Bee's radio. I sighed then shrugged and let myself fall limp. Even my door wings drooped. Damn it, I was caught. My tank rumbled again.

When I raised my head, I saw Optimus was looking at me with an arched eyebrow plate thing. Ratchet was over in front of a machine like thing, and it was filling the same bottle from yesterday. I glanced at it warily; the liquid in it was a different shade then yesterday.

Ratchets voice made me shift my gaze to him as I was placed in Optimus's hold, "We'll have to see how she likes this blend. This one has more of the minerals she needs to keep her body functioning without a caretaker." He drummed his fingers on the wall lightly. Well, if I don't like it, I'll let ya know. Caretaker, like babysitter? I damn well don't need one of those! They suck! "If we weren't short on bots, I would have one of us take care of her permanently, but our servos are full as it is with dealing with the humans."

I found Mikaela joining me in Optimus's palm. She sat down next to me and pulled me into her lap, then started running her fingers lightly over my little antenna things. It made me purr lowly. "Well," she said and glanced over at Sam. Sam was sitting on Bumblebee's shoulder and was gripping the armor there for dear life as Bumblebee dropped off the bed. "If you ever need a break, I'm sure we can babysit her."

"Baby sit?" Came the confused and slightly disturbed question from the three mechs. They must have thought that you sat on children or something. "Why would you sit on sparklings?"

"Watch her." Sam clarified. "Babysitting for us humans is having someone ether watching your child, or your watching someone else's kid." Did it once and will never do it again, never had to have it done to myself, and don't ever want it done for me. I don't like kids. Loud noisy things. Nasty lot of them, the ungrateful brats. The kid I watched went all exorcist on me when I washed a dirt stain from his face.

The mechs nodded. "Sparklings of our race are harder to watch then ones of yours, but I'm sure we could work something out if the need arises." Optimus agreed. There was a few clicks and chirps from Bumblebee, and Optimus nodded again.

Mikaela had to leave me on Prime's palm when she was transferred over to Bumblebee's shoulder. Said bot left to get then to go and get the humans their food so they could refuel. I watched them go, and waved when both Sam and Mikaela turned around and waved to us. When they were no longer in my sights, I turned around to look at Optimus.

He was looking at me, too, though he seemed to be more or less studying me. Without warning he shifted, and with a grunt on my part, my claws sprung out and imbedded themselves in-between cracks in his armor. "It's an automatic defense system Ratchet." He rumbled thoughtfully. When my balance was back, my claws slid back in with a small click.

"I told you so Prime." Grumbled the medic. I saw him approaching with a now filled bottle in his palm.

I was cradled once more in the crook of Primes arm when he stiffened. I was then passed to Ratchet. "Ironhide has informed me that there's a situation with the humans, and it requires my assistance. Feed her will you?"

"Yes Prime."

When I was situated in Ratchets arm, I let my wings twitch back and forth as I waited. He seemed to shift the bottle into a better position, and he walked to the bed and took a seat on it, before he brought it down to me. Before I took the nipple in my mouth, oh how it kills my soldier pride to say that, I realized that instead of purple it was blue. Odd thing to notice, but alright.

The energon inside made me blink and scrunch my face up. It was sweeter this time, not so much tart. It was okay, but I liked the other stuff better. This stuff left a sickly sweet aftertaste in my mouth and I didn't like it. I like stuff to be tarter but occasionally sweet things were nice, that's why I liked rainier cherries and the apples from Oregon back when I was human. They had been tart but left a nice aftertaste.

It seemed that Ratchet could tell that something was bothering me, because he wondered aloud to himself, "Was it too sweet?" To that I nodded slightly, and made him blink in surprise. "Well now we know." His face seemed to soften, and his gentler side showed through. He even began this odd melody of clicking, whirring and cooing at me that I figured was some sort of lullaby I guess. It was interesting to listen too, not all that bad to hear even if I didn't understand a flying hog monkey's ass's worth of the sounds.

I finished, though I drank a bit less than last time, and the bottle was moved. Not five minutes later I found myself on a mattress, they seemed to think that all sparklings liked soft things, with my pillow and blankets laid over me. Ratchet had said it was time for a nap, and had dimmed the lights in one corner. I could hear him putting around, doing this and that, as I let my mind wander slightly. My human mind said I wasn't tired and wouldn't be until eleven o'clock tonight, but another nonhuman part said that this was natural and I should just give in.

And I damn myself for this, but my human instincts started in on it too. I got that feeling you get at thanksgiving, when you're full and warm, it makes you sleepy. So I ended up sleeping anyways, much to my displeasure.


	10. I Am

_**(AN: Okay, so I do have to apologize, my windows program decided to go wonky, so now I'm stuck using my old version, and it sucks. So the chapters might be a bit different with some spelling errors. Sometimes the spell check doesn't work. Anyways on a further notice, I'd like to thank everyone who reviews because it gives me my umpf to get the chapters done… so thank you all for taking the time to read about Nightstrider and her struggles to adjust to her new life and the time to review if you do. )**_

I awoke to the sound of small human sounding footsteps approaching me. Ugh. I reached up and ran a hand over my optics as if to wipe the grogginess away, before I opened them to see Epps looking down at me. What time is it? Epps face was stretched into a grin, and he waved, "Afternoon squirt, well not so much afternoon since its three o'clock, but anyways; did you have a good nap?" Well that answers my question.

I gave him a long look and the so-so sign and sat up, my blanket pooling at my legs. I stretched my arms and twitched my door wings. When I felt sufficiently stretched, I balled up my blanket and left it on my pillow then moved to the edge of the mattress. I wanted to move, being stationary for so long wasn't usual for me. I was always patrolling or _something_ at least when I had been human.

I found Epps hauling me up by my armpits, and I wanted to be on the move too much to protest. He settled me on his hip like Lennox had and I gripped his shirt slightly to keep my top half steady, and gave a mighty grunt. "You know, for such a small thing you weigh a lot." Gee, thanks. That makes me feel _so_ much better, because I totally intended to get turned into a baby robot that's heavy. It's the armor. "Yep, your defiantly like a girl, the look on your face says it all. Don't want anyone commenting on your weight, eh?" He cracked a grin at me, "Didn't mean to upset ya' squirt."

"I know you didn't." I said to him in the clicks and whirrs that seemed to make up my language. This whole language barrier thing sucks ass. It really, really does. I gave a small smile to him.

He simply laughed and turned on his heels to walk off with me. Turns out, I ended up getting moved to a desk like thing, and it had human stairs on it instead of a ladder, so we just walked down the stairs. He toted me out of the bay, and as soon as we hit the main hanger, the sunlight streaming through the open doors blinded me. I gave a grunt and blinked as out direction changed and we headed towards the doors.

"Will," I could hear the rumbling voice of Ironhide outside, "I found these little _crayons_ and book of coloring in my cab this morning. I believe they were in there for a while." There was a dull thump sound, like a book and something else hitting the pavement. He must have dropped them or something.

I heard Lennox laugh as they came into view, "Sorry, their Annie's. I must have forgotten them in there the last time she was here." I could see Sam and Mikaela walking towards us from across the base lot with something that suspiciously looked like coloring tools. My eyes traveled to the items on the ground. They were crushed and melted in some spots, and they looked to have once been the remains of Crayola Crayons and a 'Whinnie The Pooh' coloring book. Lennox bent to retrieve the discarded art supplies.

I could see the various humans talking or doing things. Fig was, once again, in a conversation about not talking in Spanish all the time. A couple people were washing some military vehicles, and some were lounging on top attempting to sunbathe with cloths on. Speaking of bathing, I need a bath or at least a shower. Maybe a hose down? I feel to hot in this sunlight, even though this heat is nothing compared to Iraq's hot days.

"Yo, Lennox, Ironhide." Epps greeted as we came to a stop at Lennox's left hand side. Ironhide rumbled a reply, and then he dismissed himself to go find and have Ratchet remove the remains of the melted crayons. "Lookie who's awake from her nap," He bounced me slightly on his hip. "I even got her to smile at me when I woke her up."

When everything was gathered up, Lennox stood and turned with a small smile, "Better then yesterdays reaction." Walking passed us, though Epps followed him, Lennox went to a large dumpster to toss away the ruined things.

Epps hefted me up again and shifted my weight to the other hip, where I secured myself once more with his shirt, "Aw, come on, she was just in a bad mood." Was not. I was in my usual mood.

"Sure she was."

We headed back across the pavement, back towards Mikaela and Sam. They met us half way, and I was passed to a reluctant Sam after greetings were exchanged. They chatted for a moment, briefing each other on what went on while they were off the base, or at least things the 'civilians' could know. Lennox and Epps were beckoned by Fig, who by now was partaking in the chatting of a small group in the shade of a massive military hummer, to come and join their small congregation. Oh how I would pay to go sit in the shade.

When the humans turned to cart me away to only they know where, Mikaela called back, "Let one of the Autobots know that she's with us."

"Will do." Will answered back.

I was taken back across the lot, around a corner, and to an empty smaller tent like thing that, bless its unloving structure, had air-conditioning. I was set on the floor and Sam stood and popped his back. Oh come on, I cant possibly be that heavy. Can I? "I'm going to go get a soda, you want one?"

"Yes Sam, a Pepsi please."

"Got it." Sam left the tent to go to another.

My attention was drawn to Mikaela, who was smiling at me as she took a seat across from me. From the bag in her hands, she withdrew a crayon box and a blank note pad. God damn it, she's going to explain how to use them to me, isn't she.

She opened the box and flipped open the note pad then went through the process of drawing a very poorly drawn tree explaining things on the way. Crayons are a bitch to use. "These are crayons and paper," she motioned to the green stick of wax in one hand and the tablet in her other hand. "You draw on them, like this. You don't eat them." Why the hell would I eat them…? She finished the tree and handed both things to me. "Give it a try."

A thought crossed my mind as I held the tools. I could write like this. I could tell them my human name, everything. That I wasn't a child, I was a fully functioning human adult stuck in the body of a baby. The only problem I crossed, however, is that when I went to write everything down, my hand wouldn't work. Like there was some sort of presence holding my hand away from the paper.

Well shit.

I gave a sigh. I can't tell them that shit I guess, so I guess there was only one thing I could tell them. My hand scrawled elegantly across the paper. When I finished my short sentence, I turned it around and slid it across the floor back to Mikaela.

She leaned forward to look at it. Her eyes widened and she called out to Sam as he walked back through the door, "Sam, you need to see this!"

"What? Does the kid draw like Picasso or something?" He asked as he crossed the room to read over her shoulder.

I smiled as I leaned forward and slid the green crayon back into the box. My eyes wandered to the page. Scrawled neatly across the blank white paper, was the phrase, 'My name is Nightstrider."

Mikaela startled me as she handed the tablet up to Sam, and then rolled to her feet and scooped me up. With a hurried pace to her stride, she and Sam booked it out into the heat again, much to my displeasure, and off in the direction of where Optimus was I guess.


	11. Friendship Starts Somewhere

(_**This chapter might be odd, I don't think its my best but I just cant seem to get this scene right in my head, so I apologize profusely. I don't feel very well today, and while I'm trying to put out one or two chapters a day, and occasionally every other day, I find it just a bit hard to write today. My head is so muggy… ugh. So again, I apologize, and hope you forgive me, and I hope you review if you have the time.**_)

They found Prime dealing with something or other, and talked him into calling a meeting. So all bots were present in the main hanger.

In all honesty, I think the way Sam was rambling on and on like some sort of frightened thing confused the living hell out of Optimus. I was currently seated in Bumblebee's palm while Optimus held Sam and Mikaela. Ironhide had Lennox on his shoulder, and Ratchet was standing next to Prime. I held the pad of paper and was scrawling small designs on it with my claws as I kept one ear to the conversations going on.

"Calm down Sam." I heard Optimus rumble. "My scanners state that your body is going into a panic." Sam always seems to overreact. It wouldn't surprise me if he pittled himself a bit.

Sam gave a frustrated sound and began pacing across Optimus's palm. "I'm serious here Optimus! She's smart! Like you guys! Its freaky, children, even alien babies, shouldn't know how to write in perfect English."

"Our race is advanced, need I remind you this, though it is odd that a sparkling of her age to know this when we haven't taught her." There was a pause. "It is possible that she was created to be an advanced sparkling."

I heard some shifting noises, and looked up to see Mikaela searching her pockets, "Damn I don't have a pen to have her show you." I blinked at her. Damn, that's right, she didn't grab the crayons and I put the green one away. "Hey Will, do you have a pen?" She called to him.

I glanced at him. He was searching his pockets. He searched for a bit, before he held one up, "Yeah." Lennox was moved to Ironhide's hand for a brief moment as the big metal behemoth moved his hand over to Optimus's. Lennox handed his pen to Mikaela, whispered something I couldn't hear, and then was whisked away back to his perch. Kinda reminded me of a parrot.

Sam was handed to Bumblebee in exchange for me. I was set next to Mikaela. She handed me the pen with a studying look before she smiled slightly, "Try and answer to the best of your ability NightStrider." She was whisked away to Bee's shoulder so the rest of the bots could have a fairly clear sight of the tablet in my lap.

I cracked a grin at her from where she sat on Bumblebee's shoulder. At least they know my name now. Optimus made a sound like clearing his throat. I looked up at him. "So, your name is Nightstrider?"

I clicked the top of the pen and scrawled on the paper. "Yes."

I wanted to write more things down, like how I was actually a human and all that, but as soon as it crossed my mind, it seemed like everything froze. Literally. Optimus had been in the middle of asking something and then his face froze.

"**You cannot tell them Nightstrider.**" Came the irate voice of Primus. I turned my head, and there the old mech stood in all his robo-glory. "**It is not their place to know, nor yours to tell. This was between you and me.**"

"Its hard though!" I exclaimed. "Not being able to talk in English, its not natural!"

"**Give it time.**" He rumbled. Give it time my ass! I can't explain these things on paper!

"I mean, come on, this isn't fair! I finally found a way to communicate and now your not going to let me! What happened to freedom of speech?" I stated. "Imagine you're in my position. You go from being capable to expressing anything through speech and writing, and then you die and come back, and can't talk and you're forbidden from writing."

The old robot seemed to stare through my very being. It was creepy, but I got the feeling he was thinking. He thought for a bit. "**Your right.**" He boomed. "**It isn't fair. Very Well. I will not remove the fact that you may not talk about this, any of this that was before, but you will have your words, though simple they will be until your voice modulator is fully formed. You will still need to act like the sparkling they see you as, let them take care of you, lest I need to visit you again.**" He paused in his talking to lower himself so his face was as close to mine as he could get. "**The more you resist the instincts, the more they're going to push. Accept them, and everything will be as it should for you.**"

And then he was gone in the blink of an optic and I found myself facing Optimus again. I felt an itching feeling, like there was something changing in my throat. Something beginning to form. It made me want to scratch it, but I didn't even know what I would need to scratch. And what the hell did he mean by 'accept them and everything will be as it should' thing? My god, he was worse then that crazy baboon from the Lion King movies my cousins watched all the time.

"So you understand us?" Prime rumbled.

"Little." I wrote back. That will keep them from asking questions.

"Hey, can she, like talk?" I heard Sam ask.

Ratchet shook his head, "She is young, her voice modulator is still developing, and she would only be able to speak in her sparkling garble."

I scrunched up my face. Might as well try. "Little." I stated. My voice surprised me. Instead of my normal human voice that had been kind of deep, my voice now was soft. New sounding. "Little." I repeated again. "Not lot." I said. My voice faded to clicks and chirps for a moment. The bots and humans turned their attention to me. "Comes. Goes." I faded to chirps and twitters again.

Holy shit! I was speaking! Yes! As little as it was, I was still forming words! I set down the pen and pad. Sure I couldn't walk, but now I could communicate a bit! I let out a happy warble.

Optimus frowned and let out a series of clicks and warbles to the others, and got responded to in the same language. I was handed to Mikaela and the pad and pen to Sam as Bee put them down. There seemed to be a silent conversation that happened between the humans and the bots, but it only lasted for a few seconds. I was then snatched up by Lennox, who had been set down by Ironhide, and was settled on his hip as we four strode from the hanger.

They were silent as they took me back across the lot, and back to the tent with air conditioning. I was gently set down, and then surrounded. The three humans studied me for a minute or so, and I just twitched my door wings and stared back at them.

Sam was the first to speak. "I'm sure you've heard our names somewhere, but just in case, my name is Sam." He said and shifted slightly.

Lennox followed, "I've already told you my name, but incase you don't remember, I'm called William, Will for short."

"I'm Mikaela, but you can call me Kaela or Mikky for short." Mikaela said. She leaned her head thoughtfully in her palm, "So, how old do you think you are?" she asked.

"You don't look too much older then my Annie, that's my daughter. I think you're the robot equivalent of a toddler." Lennox said.

I thought about it. I guess I was in body and soul, but my mind wasn't. The military woman in me didn't want to agree, it said that I was fully grown in my mind and my body should be too. "Little." I motioned to my body. "Not." I laid a hand on my head.

"Mature in mind but not in body huh?" Sam quipped. I nodded to him.

Mikaela blinked slowly at me and reached over to run her hand over my little antenna things again. I purred. "Nightstrider, is there anything you'd like to be called for a nickname?"

Well, my name I guess was a bit of a mouth full. Since I'm going with my military nickname for my name, I might as well go for the shortened version as well. I nodded to her when she withdrew her hand and wiggled my door wings again. Maybe this might be the start of a small friendship. Yes, Epps too even though he's not here. In the short time I've interacted with him today, earlier with I flipped him off not included; he's grown on me. Like mold. You really only get a lot of screen time from in the third movie, it had the most, and I don't think it did him justice.

Yep. I'm starting to like the people here. The bots, those are gonna take time to like.

"Strider." I finally said.


	12. Cold

(_**Okay, so I need help on something. So I plan on having a pairing **_**way**_** later in this story, and I need an idea on who to have her paired with. I'm tempted by one pairing, and am leaning towards it. If you can guess which one out of these it is, give yourself a round of applause. I'll post the answer in the next chapter.**_

_**So here's the choices: Sideswipe/oc/Sunstreaker, Prowl/oc, and… um… some suggestions please. My mind went blank on to whom to have her paired with. The only ones you may not ask, is Prime, Ironhide, and Ratchet.**_

_**Lemme know what ya'll want me to do in a review, and guess which one I'm leaning towards.**_)

So it's been about two weeks since we learned I could talk a little bit. I could talk a little bit more, about three maybe four words before I start clicking. I was still treated like a child, damn it, but often I would get asked if I wanted to be picked up and what not. I could kind of understand, I was the first 'sparkling' they've seen in hundreds, maybe thousands of years or more. Honestly, if I were in their position, I would probably do the same if I liked kids. I spent a lot of time with Mikaela, Sam, Will, and Epps. Well, whenever they weren't busy with their normal things, like school for the first two, and duties for the last two.

On a further note, if I wasn't found with the humans, then I was often found with Optimus. He was trying to help me strengthen my leg cables, and would let me use his finger or foot depending on what he was doing to let me haul myself upwards. I was working on standing before walking though, and as soon as I could stand for a minute and a half without falling off of my servos and to my ass, and then I would try walking. Right now, I could stand for eight seconds, no more no less.

Slowly, ever so slowly, I was picking up on their words for things that we have. Like servos, that was our hands and feet if I was correct. Glitch was a swear word and a term for fainting or passing out. Cables were like their tendons and muscles, as well as veins. Slag, pit, aft, and frag were their swear words for I'm guessing shit, hell, ass, and fuck in that respective order. Processor was our brain, I already knew optics were eyes, and glossa was their tongues. This is simply a warning; I may switch between the two references.

Not much else has gone on, except that Ratchet came up with a type of sparkling energon that came in small can like containers. Truthfully, it's based off the humans 'sippie cups' so the humans can handle it if I cant reach it and they keep it in the main hanger. The permanent base was going to be set up soon on Deigo Garcia, maybe about a week, so I wouldn't be able to see Sam and Mikaela much. Ugh, that also means we have to travel by air to the base. I'm not a big fan of flying, boats ether, though I can deal with flying seeing as we had to fly to get anywhere in the military. Seen too many movies about planes and boats going down.

Right now I was being 'babysat' by Lennox and Epps, and its around nine thirty or something at night. It was cold outside, and as much as I love the cold and hate the heat, it made my joints ache and made my body feel slower and seemed like the fluid in my cables pulsed along slower. It didn't seem too cold on the larger bots, but then and again, they have larger bodies so it must have to be colder for them to feel like this. So, I was curled up on the couch with a blanket draped over my frame, watching Lennox and Epps being creamed by zombies on Left 4 Dead 2 while they sat on the floor in front of the couch. I honestly was bored.

"Shit! Tank!" Cried out one of the characters, Rochelle. I was quite familiar with this game, my cousins loved to play it together when I came home for holidays if I could and when I was on leave for this and that. I wasn't a gaming junkie though, my life style never allowed that, I only played L4D and L4D2 and a few old classics like Donkey Kong or Mario 64.

I could see Epps's character get flung into a building; he played Coach. "It isn't any where near you, damn it! Its on my ass!"

I couldn't exactly see what buttons they were mashing, but could hear the rapid clicking of the gun button. "Hold on buddy, I'm coming." Lennox said to Epps. Lennox played the lovable Ellis, and Ellis was currently hauling ass across a swamp to go save Epps's ass.

Epps's character was running down this wooden bridge that was suspended above the swampy ground. The tank was hot on his tail. Nick was dead, Rochelle was dieing, and Epps had been on his way back to fetch them and had found the tank. Now Epps had poor Coach running for his fake life, and Ellis was hustling back to help.

"Damn it, who wants to sacrifice their character to go get drinks?" Epps asked as he made Coach duck around a set of trees, pepper the tank with bullets, and then run again.

"Not me."

"Not me ether."

So they had a bit of a stale mate. Neither wanted to kill there characters, and I was bored. I slid myself down to the floor, blanket and all, in between them and chirped to get their attention. They gave me the one-minute sign, and I waited as they finally teamed up and wiped the floor with the tank then freed Nick and Rochelle who had died by then. Then they paused it and turned to me. I blinked at them and let my arms free of the confines of the blanket. "I play. Please?" I was a pro at these first person shooter games, but being in the army can do that too you. Kendal had been the better sniper, big surprise, and I was the one who always went in with guns a blazing and melee weapons a swinging.

Will rubbed the back of his head. "I don't know, your awful young, I don't think Optimus would approve." I know he wouldn't. Even my own Mother hadn't approved of these games when she was alive.

"Oh come on Will, let the kid play, that way you can go get sodas!" Epps chipped in, "If it didn't freak her out watching us play, then I don't think it's gonna hurt her to play it."

"Epps, if she has nightmares later, then I'm _so not_ taking the fall for it." Will sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes, "I'm a father, and I'm protective of my Annie, so when she has nightmares I hate it, even more so when something causes it, and I have the feeling Optimus is much, much, _much_ worse then me."

"If I don't tell, you don't tell, and," Epps blinked at me, "You wont tell right?"

"Nope." I answered.

Epps leaned back with a satisfied grin. "See? The kid isn't gonna tell, so were cool dude." A quirk of the eyebrows, "You get to fetch the drinks my buddie. I'll take a coke please."

Will handed me the controller, then gave a huff and stood, "Fine. Do you want some Energon Strider?"

"Yes please." I responded.

Will nodded and left. We both turned our attentions to the screen. The controller was a little big for my hands, but I could manage. The screen returned, and we were hit with a hoard of zombies. I put my game face on, a fairly large grin, and started firing away.

It was about twelve minutes or so until Will returned, and by then we had completed that part of the campaign, and were well into the next part and my blanket had fallen off my shoulders. We were fighting off the called hoard at the plane currently. I had my glossa stuck out, as it always did during certain parts of video games, and jumped off the wing of the plane so I could keep away from the tank that was currently chasing me. Around this tree, around that tree, and circle back to the plane, that was my rhythm. I turned Ellis around and started shooting at the tank, and it fell not too much later. We continued on, and stopped at the safe house.

As I set down the controller to scoop up my blanket, I was scooped myself into Will's arms. "Optimus says its time for her nightly Energon, and then time for bed." Yeah, I had a bedtime. Total bullshit if you ask me, since I haven't had one since my mother died, but I do. It was usually around ten o'clock to ten thirty, and once it was eleven, but it usually depends on what I've done that day and whom I'm with.

I shivered as we exited the building we were in, huddling closer to Will slightly. He jogged across the lot, and into the hanger where I was handed to Optimus. In Prime's arms, I was fed, and slowly warmed up before I bedded down in his cab again for the night.


	13. Wise Beyond Your Years

(_**Okay, so hello dear readers, the contest is coming a long good. the answer to which I had been leaning towards was SS/oc/SS, and so far two people got it correct. I messaged them to inform them of this achievement.**_

_**The voting is as follows:**_

_**Twins/oc: 5**_

_**Hound/oc, Jolt/oc, and Prowl/oc are in a tie at 1 vote each.**_

_**It's still open, and will be for voting until next chapter. Again, you can double vote, one for each chapter, and next chapter I'll tell the winner. Then we'll see how the story progresses. So review and let me know what ya'll wana read!**_

_**An interesting fact: I wrote this while listening to Lady GaGa.**_)

For the passed few days it's gotten colder, so I'm convinced that it's going into winter or something. I don't know the month and I really need to ask someone about that. I heard someone mentioning Halloween, so I'm guessing that its ether early or middle October. I'm not totally sure. Yeah, I really need to ask. Currently, it's about four days until we leave for the island.

Its been raining as of late, lots of rain. I love the rain, even as a bot, because it works as a type of shower for me since they don't make robot tubs. Ratchet though scolds me when I'm out in it, even though I've explained to the best of my ability that I'm only using it to stay clean. He says that there will be 'wash racks' on Deigo Garcia. He also says I can get a virus if I'm not careful, and he says that it won't be pleasant. Well, duh. When your sick, its never fun. I didn't even know that robots could get sick. We learn something new every day.

For the first time in a while, I got scolded. By Mikaela. The reason I got scolded was because I verbally called Sam a buttfuck. The reason why I did that? He was in a bad mood and said something rude about the female gender, on purpose or not I don't know, while he and Mikaela were babysitting me for an hour or two. Though it wasn't much of a scolding, Mikaela trying and failing not to laugh as she did, it still was a shocker. I had been so used to calling my fellow soldiers that in our usual banter that I had forgotten that civilians and children don't use that kind of language. Sam got scolded too, for saying what he said.

Speaking of talking, I haven't progressed with talking at all, but I've managed to get myself to stand up for twelve seconds now. I would jump for joy, but I think I'd fall on my ass. It seems like I've been unofficially adopted by Optimus, since I always sleep in his cab, if he's not needed urgently he is the one who always feeds me, and he seems so happy when he helps me work on walking. He hasn't said anything about it though, so maybe it's just a Prime thing.

That's what we were doing right now. We were sitting in a little closed off area that was designated 'Primes Office'. Optimus was sitting cross-legged on the floor, using his fingers to keep me steady. I was slightly frustrated… okay; I was hella frustrated that I couldn't stand for longer then twelve seconds. I gave an angry chirp as I clutched Optimus's finger with my claws and my legs gave out again. My door wings fluttered in an irritated jerking motion.

I heard Prime chuckle deeply. "It takes time, sweetspark. Not everything is instant." Oh ho, that's where he was wrong. Fish can swim the instant they hatch. "Why don't you take a little break, and rest a bit."

I grunted my negative, and moved myself to stand again. This time I braced my knees against the finger I was using, so they couldn't fold downward. I grunted again, and clung to his finger as tight as I could. He let out a long large sigh that made me tilt my head up so I could look at him. I arched an eyebrow at him.

"You remind me so much of Elita-1." He rumbled softly. I blinked up at him and waited for him to continue. "You are determined like her. She was also kind, but she could be ornery if she needed to be." He seemed to be remembering something. "She was the commander of the femmes, you know. She was also my spark mate." I know what that was! It's like a significant other, only on a more intimate level. Your spark mate is pretty much your other half. Like a soul mate, but better. You feel as if you cant live without them, and being separated for a long distance is almost as bad as death.

"You know," he finally breathed out, " I don't know if you'll understand this, but I had a sparkling once." He did? Whoa. What happened to it? "A little mech, called Orion, after my past identity. He was no older then you, when he was crushed in the fist of a Decepticon." My legs gave out, and I grunted as my aft hit the floor. I let my claws slide in and sat staring up at him so I could listen better. His hand that I had been occupying rose up, and pressed against the blue and red flamed chest plates. "I can feel the void in my spark. It isn't as painful, but its still there."

I chirped at him. Poor guy lost his mate and his kid. I'm sure that Elita-1 is still out there somewhere; otherwise the poor guy would have gone insane I bet.

He smiled at me and scooped me up to bring me to his chasis. "The pain of the void is lessened when I spend time with you, young Nightstrider."

"Strider." I corrected him.

"Hm?"

"Nickname Strider." I faded into a few chirps and clicks. Compound words were difficult, but not impossible.

He smiled again. "Alright, Strider." He stroked a digit lightly over my helm, a ghost of a touch really, but I still purred when he brushed my antenna. "I… think of you as my sparkling, Strider." He rumbled. "I have since the first time I fed you. Do you remember that?"

The look on his face and the rumble his engine made? Hard not to. "Yes." I answered.

"When you had hesitated, I thought that you didn't like me. I was willing to hand you to Ratchet. But then you cooed." His smile softened and he cradled me gently to his chest plates. "And then the pain lessened."

I smiled gently up to him. That's good. Though I guess he thinks me as his child then? I never had a father that I can remember. My dad left my mother before I was a year old. He wanted nothing to do with me. Mama met my step dad when I was four. She was married two months, before it was found that he was banging Skylar's, my cousin remember, biological mom. My Mama should have known he was up to no good. He did just get out of prison.

So I guess… that was fine, him thinking me as his child. It would take me longer to return the feelings fully, though I already had some feelings for the bot starting. I don't know what to think of them just yet…

I heard him inhale deeply, and then exhale. "Elita would have loved you if she were here. She loved sparklings…" he seemed to stare off into space.

I chirped loudly, gaining his attention again. I pressed a small hand to his chasis, the closest part of it I could reach where I could hear his spark beating. He needed to know that she wasn't gone, not entirely. Loved ones always remain in your heart, apart of you. I learned that when my mama died, she told me herself. She had said that no one was truly gone; they lived on in the people they loved and cherished. "Not gone. Still there. Space. Still here, in you're-" my voice fizzled out loudly and painfully, not ready for extensive talking. My still forming voice box sparked briefly. "Spark." I cracked out.

I coughed and used my hands to rub my throat. It hurt. It had never done that before. I grimaced, and suddenly found myself in front of Optimus's optics. His free hand tilted my head back slightly, and I felt the tell tale signs of a scanning. He sighed. "You've strained you're vocal processor. You should let it rest, don't try and speak English for a while little one." I chirped at him when he let my head down. He blinked at me and brought me closer to his face. "You may not know this for a long time, but you are wise beyond your years little one." Not really. I just know what to say, having consoled families of my fallen comrades before, and my own family over the phone for various situations.

Contrary to how I seem all the time, I'm not heartless. Well, sparkless. I can empathize with people, especially ones who lost their loved ones. But, I'm about as likely to break down into a sobbing blubbering mess, as the titanic is to form itself back together and pull into port bearing still living passengers who haven't aged.

I leaned over and pressed a hand to the side of his face and cooed at him to let him know I knew what he said.

He lowered me back down to his chasis with a smile. He made the noise of clearing his throat, though I don't know if robots have to do that, and rumbled. "With that said; Nightstrider, will you allow me to be your legal adopted mech creator?"

He wanted to adopt me. Holy shit. I was wanted as a child by a giant fucking robot. _Holy shit._

"Now I understand if you don't want me to." He said when I didn't respond immediately. "I know that we haven't known each other long, but doesn't it always take time for any form of friendship and the like wise to form? We can wait, if you like, and see if we get closer."

I chirped to get his attention. He blinked at me. I blinked at him. Then I opened my mouth, and ignoring the spark that danced across my throat, I said, "Yes." I would allow him to adopt me. Worst that can happen is we clash a lot, but I have the feeling we will do that anyways when I'm bigger and can actually hold an argument.

I found myself held tightly to a chasis that rumbled loudly and happily.


	14. Good Bye

(_**And the winner is… Sides/oc/sunny! So now voting is closed, and we get to see how the story progresses!**_

_**Further more, this chapter is a bit small since I have company, but it gets things moving along.**_)

So it's been four days since Optimus adopted me. Nothing has changed, really, and he hasn't told anyone yet. I think he's waiting until we get to Deigo Garcia, so no one glitches or anything… apparently too much shock can make transformers processors glitch and result in a transformer that is passed out. If I remember correctly from the old shows, a bot called Prowl is always prone to these things and the only way to fix it is for a medical bot to go in and do something or other.

Speaking of days passed, were leaving today. By plane. Ugh. Currently I'm sitting in Prime's cab, my pillows and blankets laid out further in his extended cab so I can sleep through the flight like they, the older bots, plan to do. We haven't boarded the plane yet, because Sam and Mikaela were sitting here next to me.

I was pulled into a hug by Mikaela, and I gave her a one armed hug back. "I'll miss you Strider. I really will." She reached up and rubbed my antenna, which was actually my 'audio receptor', or my ears in human terms. I angled them a bit, since they were on the sides of my head, and purred.

"Miss you too." I mumbled to her. My voice box thing had healed after a day and a half of simply chirps and clicks. I haven't advanced any in my talking since then, but I was happy as could be with being able to communicate.

When she released me, I turned to Sam, who sat on the other side of me. I studied him for a bit, and he simply gave me a curious look. He and I weren't as close as Mikaela, and me but we still were friends I think. I dint think he would hug me though. Then he pulled me in for a one armed hug, and I froze for a second, and then reciprocated it. "I guess even I'll miss you too Strider."

"Ditto Sam." I stated and grinned at him. He grinned back and patted my helm as I slid away from him.

"We'll come visit you if we can, okay?" Mikaela informed me. I nodded to her. "And you know good bye isn't for ever right?"

I nodded again. "Don't mean not," I chirped for a moment, "hard to say."

She smiled gently at me, and Sam chipped in, "True it is, but you don't have to say good bye. You could say something like, 'until we meet again' or something cheesy like that." Ah, good old Sammy.

"Till meet again." I said firmly. They nodded and I got one more not-a-goodbye hug.

They then had to slip out of Optimus, and then he shut his door. With a roar, his engine started and he pulled forward. I peaked out the window, and waved to Bee who was to guard the boy, and to Sam and Mikaela who stood by his feet.

Not much later, we were all situated in the plane, Optimus being the last one loaded on, and the hatch we had rolled up began closing. I watched the last glimmer of daylight fade, and then artificial lighting lighted the space we occupied. I crawled to my blankets and pillow, and then snuggled into them with my door wings drooping into a rigid stance.

I stayed awake though. I couldn't fall asleep, even after the plane took off. Too many planes crash… even military planes. I heard Optimus's voice echo through out the cabin, "What is wrong, my sweetspark? Does something bother you?"

I was still for a moment, and then I nodded. "Don't like fly." I faded to chirps for a moment. "Don't like planes."

He let a soothing rumble vibrate his seat, and then he said, "I see. Would it help if I play some music?"

Dunno, it might… I sighed and flipped the blanket over my head. Maybe I could imagine I was on the ground or something. "Dunno."

"Lets try it. What type do you want to listen to?"

I guess we could try. "Techno opera. Please?" I asked. I peaked an optic out of the blanket when Optimus grunted slightly and I could hear the clicking of his radio.

Not to many seconds later, a song I didn't recognize floated through the speakers. It wasn't loud, and it was nice, it relaxed me when I heard the beat quicken and fade along with the words. Then I realized it was a remix. Not bad, not bad for a remix. Everyone seems to make the most horrible remixes. My wings perked up and loosened. They fluttered down to the seat as I relaxed under the beat of the music and the ghostly words threaded through out the song.

The song was on repeat somehow, so I just kept listening to it. It took me a bit to fall asleep, so Optimus seemed to vibrate his seat. It was nice, like a full body massage, it felt good on my door wings since they were touching each other and the seat.

In the end, I succumbed to the welcoming embrace of sleep, to wait out the next several hours of flying.


	15. Diego Garcia

(_**Okay, so I'm glad things are going good in the story, but I may be a bit slow on updates occasionally since I have farm work to do cause that's my job. And as of late my mother keeps stealing the computer… grr…**_

_**On a further notice, I would like to thank everyone who has reviewed. You all make my life wonderful, and on the days that I don't know how to get myself going, I think of everyone who looks forward to my writings and it helps.**_

_**I'm glad you all seem to approve of the choice pairing. It's going to be interesting seeing how it all turns out… hmm And the chapter is a bit longer since the last one was shorter.**_)

I awoke not to long before we landed, my tank had decided that it needed to refuel, but I didn't move or signal that I was awake. Optimus turned off the music apparently, because it wasn't filtering through his speakers. The noise that was currently coming through was a small noise, like a snore of sorts. I didn't even know transformers could snore. Did I snore? I would have to ask. My wing joints needed to be stretched, as did all my joints, but I didn't fancy waking Optimus. I don't think he's much of a morning person. Neither am I for that matter usually.

I was just drifting back to sleep, when it felt like we were being shaken up and down. I jolted upright, thoughts of plane crashes flashing through my mind, and let out a squeak. Optimus let out a grunt as his front tires left the floor of the large cargo plane and then banged back down. I could hear others disgruntled noises and such from outside the cab.

"This is Pilot Skippy here. Sorry 'bout the shake up, we went through a rough patch of turbulence. Were descending to Deigo Garcia now. ETA three minutes." I could hear our pilot call over the intercoms. Rough patch of turbulence my ass; that was more like a freaking engine stall!

Loudly I could hear Ironhide grouching about it. "Turbulence my aft! I don't like flying, we're not bloody slagging seekers who are made for flying. We have wheels; wheels that are meant to _stay on the ground and not bounce up for any reason_. Ooh, my axels." My thoughts exactly.

"Ironhide, watch your language. If I can hear you loud and clearly, then I'm sure Nightstrider can too." I could indeed. There was a grunt of acknowledgement and then Ironhide fell silent.

I let out a whine and flopped face first into my pillow. I never used to fear flying like this. I used to only get a bit nauseas and from time to time I would squeak or grunt at this and that, but now… It just terrifies me to fly. I wasn't made to fly, and I shouldn't be in the air. Now I was laying on my stomach, my blanket having been tossed away from me when I freaked, and my door wing were standing up rigidly. "Are you okay Nightstrider?" I could hear Optimus ask.

"Yes… no… dunno." I answered in a muffled voice. "Turbance," I could not get my sparkling tongue to wrap around the word and pronounce it correctly, "no like." I sighed. "No feel safe…"

"I wont ever let anything happen to you, my sweetspark. Not ever." He murmured to me, "I'll protect you with all I can."

I nodded slightly. "Know this." I paused for a moment. "'Tect you too" I chirped a bit, "if could."

He vibrated his seats again like a big old rumbling purr, and I relaxed for a moment until the plane jumped again. I stiffened once more, and I heard Optimus and everyone else grunt. When the plane settled again, I heard my adoptive father coo to me. "No one really likes it. This is the first time I've ever been on one of these… planes… I can't say I like it very much ether." He chuckled for a moment, a rich baritone sound that probably made femmes melt back when there was peace on Cybertron. I wonder if Elita-1 liked his laugh? "And apparently neither does Ironhide."

I just nodded and curled in on myself. Thank god we were getting off soon. Usually turbulence isn't this bad, but then and again I was used to smaller planes back in Iraq; not huge hulking beasts that could carry three Autobots, I'm smaller and actually inside Optimus so I don't count, and their human companions and the humans things.

There was a loud snore like noise, a rumble actually, from the only bot that hadn't said a peep during the whole affair. I sat up and blinked out Optimus's windshield. "That Rat?" I asked. Ratchet was a hard name to pronounce when your voice box is still forming… I wonder how long it takes to form… yet another question for me to ask our medic bot.

"Yes I believe that was." Prime answered.

I sighed. Of course, everyone has his or her quirks. Ratchet doesn't wake up to plane turbulence, and I don't like flying.

It was quiet for a minute, and then I was flung roughly down against Optimus's seats. Belts formed out of nowhere and snaked around me to keep me from bouncing further. We bounced a bit, until we leveled out. It took me moment, but then I realized we had landed. We had landed! Yes! Though a little warning would have been nice… Not a minute or so later, I felt the plane come to a complete stop, and Optimus let go of the belt and scanned me.

"Pilot Skippy here, we've landed in Diego Garcia." More like pilot 'crazy shit'! Who the hell doesn't tell their cargo that they're touching down! "Ladies and gentle bots, start your engines!" oh greeeeaaaat. A Pilot with a sense of fucked up humor. Not funny dude, not funny at all.

I heard Optimus start up his engine with a roar, Ironhide following. It took Ratchet a moment, but he too roared to life. I folded up my blanket and tucked it in my pillowcase for storage and then crawled up to the front of the cab. I peeked up to try and see over the dashboard, couldn't see much though. Then Prime raised his seat a bit so I could see and we watched and waited.

The cargo door seemed to open so slowly. The light peeked through the ever-widening opening, and I had to cover my optics for a moment as they adjusted to the natural light instead of artificial lighting. When I could see properly again, I heard a dull thump noise, and then Optimus pulled out slowly, I guess so I didn't fall. I could see the base, it looked almost exactly as it did in the movie, though there were less buildings and stuff. I guess when the other 'bots came to Earth they had to revamp things. It was really deserted, and If I remember, no other human towns on this island other then a port they were going to put in so that the humans would have a way to get goods.

I blinked at Optimus came to a stop some ways away from the plane, and then opened his door and lowered his seat back to normal. Ironhide pulled up next to him, a bunch of the N.E.S.T members riding in the back of his truck bed while Ratchet took off towards the base for what ever reason. Epps was in a deep conversation with Fig, who I had been introduced to, again about all his chatting in Spanish. Couldn't understand a single word the man said, and in turn, didn't really like him much. All his endless Spanish prattle was enough to short-circuit my brain.

Lennox was climbing down the side of the behemoth truck though seemed to be having some problems. Ironhide was rocking back and forth on his axels, acting like a two year old with a ticklish spot that's being exploited. Poor Will was holding onto a small indent in the metal, his buddies now laughing at him and having a blast keeping themselves in the back of Ironhide.

"Slag it Will! Leg'go!" Ironhide grumped. Though, it seemed he was making a chuffing noise… Was he ticklish or something? "Ah- No! Don't grab there!" Oh that sounds so wrong.

I heard Optimus grumble about his use of bad language around sparklings. Then he told me never to use such language. If only he knew…

"I will if you sit still for ten seconds and let me down!" Will cried indignantly.

The beast with hubcaps went still. "Ten seconds." Came the gruff chuffing of Ironhide. As Will scaled down, Ironhide would twitch every so often.

When Will was on the ground, he walked a bit further up and patted the front passenger side door. "Attaboy. Wasn't so hard now was it you big baby?" He turned to head towards us, but ended up stumbling. Why did he stumble? Well, Ironhide decided to pop his door out and bump Will in the ass. Regaining his footing, I'm guessing that he shot Ironhide a nasty look when he turned to look at him for a brief moment, and then he came over to us.

"Hi Will." I chirped to him from my perch.

Will smiled at me and stepped up on that stepladder thing that all big rigs have. Leaning up into the cab he scooped me up onto his hip like usual and stepped back down to the ground and walked away from Optimus so he could transform. "Hello to you too Strider. How did you like flying?" Will asked me as the sounds of transforming followed his question.

I scowled. "Do not like." Nope, not at all. I like being on the ground better then this.

Will arched a brow at me. He hefted me up a bit further on his hip and we turned to watch the last parts shift into place on Optimus. "Oh? Why's that?"

Optimus answered for me, "She doesn't like the turbulence, or the flying itself. I don't know why." He knelt down and held out his hand for me to be placed into. "I'll take her so you and your teammates may go see your barracks."

"All right." I was placed into his hand not a moment later, "I see. I used to be like that too. Took me a long time to get used to it, and I still don't like it much."

"I see. Please, come to the main hanger in thirty of your earth minutes. There are some things you must be informed of."

"Will do boss bot."

Optimus nodded in response and then stood again. My claws kept me secure in his hand as he strode away. I was cradled close to his chasis, so I don't know exactly where we were heading. When sight was restored to me, I was in a different type of med bay like thing. Ratchet was already working on getting it set up, so he just handed Prime one of my bottles and then shoed us out.

Optimus simply chuckled and went to the main hanger. Once there, he fed me and then put the bottle away in his subspace. It turns out that a subspace is where bots can store things. That's also where my pillows and blanket go when he transforms. From there, he simply held me while I enjoyed being out of that damned plane until everyone else arrived. I'm guessing he comm. linked the bots, cause they were here too.

I was held at chasis level, and I leaned against the chest armor of my adopted father. His engine was rumbling happily in my ears. He looked to his soldiers, closest friends, and allies. Then he spoke. "You all know that the sparkling Nightstrider came into our care some time ago." Oh ho, he was going to do this all-formal like then, was he?

They were silent.

"I have talked with her, and she has agreed." He had a happily proud gleam in his optics. "I have formally adopted her as my daughter, and she to me as her mech creator."

It was silent for a moment, then I heard Ratchet rumble out, "About slagging time you admitted it. I was suspicious."


	16. Timber

(_**So things are going good, I have new plot twists and stuff. Cant tell ya'll cause that'd ruin the surprise, but I am sorry I didn't update last night. I was unbelievably tired after giving an ass beating to my friend at a public place -it was boffer sword fighting- and getting the title of Queen to the Black Knight –it was an event and I got chosen out of a crowd of like seven hundred people- and getting kissed on the cheek by said sexy Knight in the middle of a heat wave.**_

_**So I am a little tired, and am complaining a bit cause my arms are sore as hell. Well, anyways, thanks for all who review and all who read my rambling authors notes. As for further on in the chapter, think Optimus's antenna things when you read this "**_arched up the sides into two non sharp protrusions angled upward where my ears would be."

_**I wonder… does anyone want to try and draw baby Nightstrider and send me a link?**_)

Not much had gone on in the several days that followed. It was mostly everyone getting settled in and adjusted to his or her new home or bringing in and creating everything that we needed immediately. Ratchet had gotten his med bay set up better then the other one back in tranquility, and he seemed quite pleased with it. He even had his own little office of sorts. The whole base was a lot roomier then the movie showed us. We all had been taken on a tour of sorts, so we knew where everything was. There were underground levels; that's where the recreational room, rec room for short, was located. The training room, firing range, and weight room, yep robots lifted weights as odd as that sounds, were down there also along with the Energon containment units.

The barracks, both human and Autobot were located behind the main hanger in large buildings. For both party's barracks there were the basic things that they would need. A kitchen for both, though the bots only held energon and a few types of oil, there were community bathrooms though they had sections so it seemed like it was just a bunch of separate bathrooms in one large room. There was a room located beneath the Bots barracks; one that I was told housed the 'body of a comrade' to use Optimus's words. The only body of a comrade that I knew of was Jazz's corpse; although there had been a rumor back in my words that the body that was ripped in half had been a clone and the real Jazz was still out there in the vicinity of earth.

Today was an incredibly warm day, and it was late, about six o'clock. It made my armor hot enough that I could probably have cracked an egg on it and fried it, and made me wish all the more that I could go take a bath and escape this heat. Currently, I was outside with Will, Epps, and Fig. The guys had decided that they wanted to play in the water today since it was hot, and had stolen me away to a part of the lot that had some grass instead of concrete, and had of course taken a hose, two actually and two squirt guns so that we could have a water war, to supply the water. They had asked Ratchet if water made bots rust and were informed that a bot would only rust if they were exposed to salt water for several days with no way to remove the salt. Made sense to me.

So here I was standing, yep I've been working too cause I can stand for thirty eight seconds now and I can say up to four words easily now though my words don't always have proper grammar, in this little bit of field holding a hose and firing at Epps while laughing as Epps passed the hose over me in a sprinkler fashion. These were the high-powered pressure hoses, so they go quite a ways and make you strain your muscles to hold onto them, and it usually hurts to get hit with them and right now I was being the water sniper. Fig was on my team and was firing with his gun at Will, who was in the middle of running to Epps to refuel. We all were muddy, but the water made the mud cold and it felt good in the heat.

Our laughter was ringing over the open ground and echoing back at us from the building walls. I gave a disgruntled noise as my servo slipped in the wet grass and I fell on my ass. The greenish grass, though it was muddier now then green, gave me a fresh coating of mud particles and little grits of sand to my joints. It's uncomfortable, but I can deal. I was now a brownish color though. The guys ran around shooting at each other, and I, being myself, shot at all three. It earned me some words in Spanish from Fig.

Will now had Fig's water gun to his head, and had dropped his where it was. The field now was pretty much just one giant mud pit. Everyone was slipping and sliding, even I when I actually crawled around and we were situated in the middle of it all. Will could have very well have been Epps's twin with how much mud was on his skin. The only white thing on him was his teeth, and the skin under his mud-covered cloths. Fig was no better then Will though. With Epps, you couldn't really tell that he was covered in mud, save his cloths were a dark brown though.

"I give!" I heard Will call. "Team NightFig has won! Team Wepps gives up!"

I chuckled and let go the of spray handle. The water stopped shooting out, and I let a grin cross my face. I was about to call out that will had given up too soon, when I was scooped up in a familiar large hand, hose and all. "My, my, my, what a dirty little sparkling here." Optimus's optics glinted with mirth. What I want to know is how the hell did he sneak up on me? He's like 8.3 tons of metal and gears! How the hell did he pull a freaking ninja on me?

He didn't seem to suspect anything, so I aimed the hose, and let loose a blast of frigid cold water right in his face. He jerked at the cold water to his face, I lost my grip on the hose, and then he started tipping backwards. Apparently in the mud his foot slipped out from under him when he had jerked. As he fell, his hand closed and tightened around me to keep me safe.

"Timber!" I heard Epps yell.

Optimus landed with a great big squelching thud. His hand opened around me, and I found myself sitting on his chasis with him staring at me. I blinked at him, and then I giggled once I saw the big brown splatter marks on his head and shoulders. "Now you dirty too!" I chirped at him.

He chuckled, making me vibrate on his chest, and cupped me in his hand and rolled to his feet. "I see that I am." He moved his gaze down to where I figured the humans were, "I trust that you three don't mind if I take my sparkling back?"

"Nah, is cool man." Epps answered. Fig agreed. "I challenge you to a rematch the next heat wave Strider!" Epps called.

I called back. "No happening!"

I heard laughter. "We'll get this gathered up, and then head to the showers."

"We'll be heading there as well." Optimus traveled his gaze back to my dirty frame. Cool! I'm gonna get to have my first bath that's not rainwater or a hose!

"Okay." Will said. "See you later Optimus, Nightstrider!"

"Bye!" I called as Prime echoed me and then turned to leave. He was careful, oh so careful that he didn't fall this time.

It didn't take long to reach the showers; Optimus and I were the only ones in there. He carried me into one of the stalls, all equally humungous, and set me on a sink like counter. He turned to the shower itself, and began fiddling with the controls. I turned myself and found myself staring into a mirror. I hadn't looked at my reflection specifically since the first time I had.

I looked exactly like last time, only very dirty. Faintly through the mud, you could see my black paint and purple flames. My optics, large and blue, stared back at me. My door wings were fairly large, black with just a few licks of flame going over them, but I guess I'd grow into them. I even had these tiny little smoke stacks that just barely peaked up over my shoulder. I had a small nose-plating thing, and a small mouth plating set, the sides of my helm crept just slightly over my cheeks giving them a feminine quality and arched up the sides into two non sharp protrusions angled upward where my ears would be. My helm was rounded on the top, with a slightly raised ridge going down the center. My antennas were odd. They were placed on the rounded part of my helm and were currently sticking up with curiosity.

My body was small, that's a given, and had a rounded chest area. It wasn't very round, but it wasn't boxy like a mechs chasis. It, my shoulders, my legs, and my arms were armored. Through the mud, I could see that my chest armor had little purple flame just barely going anywhere up on it, and my arms and legs had a little of it too. My abdominal region, like Ratchet had said, wasn't there yet but I have the suspicion that it'll be armored too.

I was snatched up in a hand, and carted under the warm spray of the water. I relaxed and let Optimus do what ever he needed to do, and I could have sighed as I felt the grit and nasty things leave my joints. I fluttered my door wings happily as Optimus scrubbed expertly at the small seams in my armor gently. He knew just how to hold me, tip me, and do what ever to get the water to run under the seams in my armor and through/over my cables. I let out a purr as his finger rubbed along the ear like thing and my antenna. It felt good to have all the dirt and stuff washed away in a dark brown river.

Sure it was kind of awkward bathing with an adult who's supposed to be my adopted father, especially when my mind is that of an adults as well, but it felt nice. It relaxed my cables that had tightened while holding that powerhouse of a hose, and I felt myself drifting towards recharge.

"Strider," Optimus cooed to me. "You can't go to sleep yet, I need to clean myself and you haven't had your nightly energon."

"Not hungry." I said. And I wasn't. Epps and Will had given me a fair amount of energon sippie cups so I could keep up for the water fight. "Sleep. Tired…" I was indeed tired, and just really wanted to sleep.

He sighed a bit then shifted me a bit. "Do you want me to put you in my sparkling hold?" I trilled at him in questioning. "Surely you've been in one?"

"No." I said.

I'm guessing by the look on his faceplates that he must have thought that my 'biological creators' had been strange or cruel. He stepped back out of the spray, and took me to the sink again and set me gently there. He subspaced my sleeping things and set them on a dry spot, then he grabbed a big towel and began to dry me. "Then if you would like, I will place you in my hold so you may sleep."

"Sure." I trilled. He smiled at me, and I smiled sleepily back at him. When I was all dry and ready as I'd ever be, he lifted my sleeping supplies and me upward. I held on tightly to my sleeping supplies and then I asked, "I get wet?"

"No," he chuckled slightly. "Water wont invade, sweetspark."

"Okay."

Optimus's chest started sliding open, and I stared in a tired wonder. His insides were huge! The box that I was going into was large on the outside, but it made me wonder if it was just a lot of protective armor to protect the sparkling when it was in there. There was a little flap thing that opened in the box next to his spark, and then he gently placed me in there. It was dark, once the hatch closed, but my optics lit the way as I crawled to a spot. I laid my pillow down and then made a sleeping bag sort of thing and crawled inside of it. As my eyes peaked about, I found that it was indeed large but it was smaller then I would have thought, but I had the feeling that the inside sized itself accordingly.

I could feel the pulsing of his spark, the gentle beat that relaxed and soothed, and I could hear the sounds of water on metal, which told me that he was back in the shower. He was a smooth walker if I didn't notice him moving. It felt nice in here. Safe. I sighed and closed my eyes. It was like a hug from a loving family member, though this felt deeper, more bonding then simple flesh to flesh contact. It made me wonder, if this is what a hug from a loving father was like.

"Good night, Nightstrider." I heard Optimus say to me.

I let myself purr, and in my tired haze I didn't recognize what I said until it spewed from my mouth. "Night Papa."

Optimus's engine roaring proudly was the last thing I heard before I drifted off into slumber land.


	17. Reunited

(_**Things are going to start happening soon, but I don't like to rush through things so it wont happen in the blink of an eye. There's still two years to pass, if I'm correct about the timing, so I will do a fair amount of time jumping.**_

_**I am incredibly sorry if the new bots character is off. I don't even know what their like, so its hard for me to right about them. Please let me know what changes I can make to them in the next chapter via a review if you will.**_)

The sleeping in the hold thing was weird, cause I found that I didn't move, or slide around unless Optimus jerked about. The only reason I know I move when he jerks about is because something had startled him. I'm guessing he had run into one of the other bots.

Things were calm for a few weeks, about three by my count. We had our second water war the next day, and my team lost. Sam, Mikaela, and Bee were supposed to come visit us in a week, and were going to stay for a few days. That would be fun. We did have one scare, and that was when my body just started hurting for no reason. Freaked me the hell out, and scared the shit out of Optimus, but Ratchet said that I was just having a growth spurt. He seem a bit more serious though, so I suspect that I wasn't supposed to grow as much as I did, which was six inches putting me at three foot six.

In the barracks, the big bot beds were finally made, so now every night I ether fell asleep on Optimus's chasis, or he would put me in his hold and I would sleep there. I was hardly in his hold, only when I needed to sleep. Sometimes through I would fall asleep in the most random places, like on top of a tank. I had been practicing my climbing, and had gotten myself up there somehow. Will had almost had an ulcer when he saw me up there. I got scolded and stuck in a time out for doing it too.

We also got a transmission from a supposed Autobot group about a day ago, though it may be a Decepticon trap. It wasn't detailed, so no one really knew who it was going to be, only that it was a femme by the voice. All we knew was that they were supposed to crash-land close to where I had.

That's where we are now, at my landing sight. Yep, we traveled by plane again, though Pilot Skippy wasn't our pilot anymore. Now we had a calmer pilot, some girl that goes by the nickname of jitterbug, bug for short. The ground was still slightly torn up, but the weather here in tranquility has made the ground kind of slide back into place. Like a mini mudslide. Speaking of weather, it's really cold here, and we're standing in snow. I'm sitting on top of one of the vehicles that were brought for them to choose from. There were some motorcycles, and some small cars like a prius. I was currently sitting on a pink bike with a battery powered heated blanket wrapped around me. Guess who brought the blanket? Fig. I don't know how he got the blanket, and I wont ask, but I was grateful. I couldn't be held by any of the bots because if there was a problem they would need both hands and need not worry about protecting their sparkling hold if I'm in it.

So here I was, sitting on a motorcycle freezing my ass off with equally cold humans next to me. The blanket helped, but it just wasn't enough to keep me totally warm in this icy weather. Optimus and the others were a little bit further away from the humans and me, and didn't seem bothered by the snow beneath their toes at all. Moments like this is when I wished I were bigger like them so I could enjoy the cold weather and not have to worry about my cables and joints freezing up. I could see three meteorite like things heading towards us, though the trajectory was a little off so they'd probably land far to close to us. Trajectory is simple after your taught to aim a gun.

I was right. The three bots were quick, and shielded us from the flung up debris and various other things that invaded the air when the three bots crash-landed with a bang loud enough to shake the ground and make the bike I was perched on wobbled back and forth.

When we could see again, the bots stood once more and advanced towards the craters. Three small figures, one being taller then the other two, stood up from the holes. They were defiantly feminine, as their extended chests showed, and were actually Autobots if the symbols on their chest were true. I heard clicking, lots of it, and it let me know that the now six big bots were talking. By the looks on their faces and their body stances, I would guess that this was the formal introduction to earth and letting the femmes know various things.

My best guess is that these are the motorcycle trio. I don't remember their names, only that they were femmes and were kick ass fighters. The femme's suddenly launched forward. One, the largest, latched onto Optimus, and another latched onto Ironhide. Both pairs of bots hugged, and nuzzled and I'm sure they probably would have started sucking face if they weren't where they could be seen. What the hell? Ratchet and the other hugged and then pulled back and began talking in rapid clicks. There was more clicking, and then they separated and came over to us.

"Elita-1, Arcee, and Chromia, these are our human allies." Optimus introduced but didn't point out which one was which. He named off each and every human here, how the hell he can remember all those names I wont ever know. Then he went on. "They have helped us procure alt modes for the three of you." He motioned to the vehicles. He didn't introduce me… great, which means more questions.

The femmes nodded and moved forward. The humans got out of the way, but I stayed where I was. I didn't want to get my feet back in the snow just yet. I pulled the blanket tighter around me to where the only thing you could really see was my glowing optics and shivered. The heat that the blanket had been putting off was dieing down, so I can only guess that the batteries ether had died or were dieing.

Optimus came over to me and knelt down in front of the bike. "Hello Strider."

"Hello." I chirped back.

"Do you remember me talking to you about Elita-1?" he asked. I caught the larger femme angling slightly at the mention of he name. I nodded. "You see her over there?" he pointed to the larger female. "That's Elita, your adopted femme creator." An adopted father was once thing, since I never had a father I could remember as a human, but I had a mother, one that died. I wasn't just going to accept a new one right away.

The largest of the femme's knelt down in front of me, blinked as if she was inquisitive, and clicked a couple of times. What the hell did she say? Optimus put his hand on her shoulder, "That's Nightstrider, Elita. She for some reason or another seems to only understand the human's language."

"I see." Elita said quietly. Her voice was a deep feminine tone, kind of husky really. "Who's sparkling is she, and how old?"

"We do not know on ether accounts. Her body is young, but she has her armor and can speak fairly well in English. She is really quite remarkable." Optimus answered. "But she has been adopted so she would have someone."

A single flash of something filtered through Elita's optics and was gone a moment later as she looked to Optimus. "Indeed she is. Who has adopted her?"

I trilled loudly to get their attention. "Op'mus did." I shivered again making my armor clank loudly.

Elita blinked down at me once, and then scooped me up and held me to her chasis. I slipped my claws out and they found purchase in her hand armor. I sent Optimus a disgruntled look. "When?"

"Not to long ago." He answered. "She had no one, Elita, and at the time neither did I. I know that look. You think I forgot about Orion don't you?"

"He no forget." I stated. "Told me so. Told me worry bout you." I chirped between sentences. Both bots turned their heads to look at me. "I help lessen pain," I chirped a bit, "he said. Not fill void. Make new spot in spark."

"Still wise beyond your years little one." Optimus cooed to me. In a normal tone, he said to Elita, "If you were in my place, would you not have done the same? Would you have left an innocent sparkling without any creators alone, to be passed around bot to bot to be taken care of until she was old enough to do it herself?"

Elita was silent for a moment. I looked around, seeing that everyone was giving us our space to deal with things. "We will talk about his later." She stated to Optimus. "You know I would have done it as well. I guess I don't have the right to be upset… I still miss Orion, Optimus. The pain doesn't go away."

"Time heals all wounds." I stated. "No fight. Just found. Time for happiness." I stated. My throat gave a slightly painful warning spark, and I quickly shut up with a half bit whine.

Elita ran a finger down my back and cooed a bit. Goddamn, I hated it when my throat sparked. It always hurt. "Your right little one." To Optimus she said, "If she is adopted by you, then I trust your judgment and adopt her as my own as well." Shit, well, it takes time to fully accept anyone. I'm still working on it with Optimus.

I sighed slightly and shivered again. I guess now that I'm in a whole new world and in a whole new life I should have a whole new family as well. "Alt mode." I reminded her.

"Yes, yes." She handed me off to Optimus, and then took a look at the bike that I had been occupying. The hot pink color of the bike flew over her armor and darkened to a dark purple and then she folded down into a slightly larger version of the bike, but still a bike nonetheless.

"Cold." I murmured and clung to Optimus's fingers. Their bodies were always warm in a way, probably ether from their spark radiating through their body, or from the friction caused by the gears. My tank grumbled. "Hungry."

Optimus held me closer to his chasis, "I know, sweetspark. We'll head back to Diego Garcia soon." Gah, more flying on the plane.

Elita revved her engine and rolled around a bit, then took off with her sisters, Chromia a blue motorcycle and Arcee a bright pink one, to zoom through the trees a bit, and test out her new alt mode. It made me wonder when I would get my alt mode, cause I already had one that I wanted to have. An old 1987 GMC Jimmy. Why? Because that was what my human mothers car had been, and I loved it. It was heavy duty, though not absurdly fast, it could get going pretty easily, and it was great for off road racing.

Optimus handed me to Ironhide, and then folded down into his truck form. I was placed inside, my pillow and blanket already waiting, and I crawled into their inviting warmth. I didn't fall asleep though, until we were on the plane back to Diego Garcia.


	18. Homesick and Anger

(_**So, I'm sorry but my updates might be a bit slow, cause I'm getting quite busy with my job. I also have a sunburn, and I'm very, very sore. Kinda grumpy, and in a bit of a mood like Nightstreaker here in this chapter. **_

_**You do have to understand though, why she's like this. She managed to get the other bots to stop coddling her, and now this new femme who didn't seem to want her in the first place comes walking into her life and throwing her off whack again. Imagine then, that the femme was trying to take the place of your mother that died. She just gets pushed a bit over the edge, like I had been the other day.**_

_**Lesson to learn: everyone has his or her breaking points for stress. Even robots.**_

_**I have an idea for another story once I finish this one. Here's the plot: **__Okay, so a sixteen-year-old girl is traveling through mission city after visiting her aunt to get back to her home ranch in Oregon. Her car tire is popped by something, and she gets out to change it with a spare. She finds an interesting metal shard in the tire and wants to use it for a mirror decoration. She puts it in her car, changes the tire and goes home. The next few days later after she got home and put the shard on her rearview mirror, she's lounging on top of her car reading a book, completely ignoring the warning for thundershowers, and then a bolt of lightning strikes the car. She becomes her car, and the car becomes her, her flesh body becomes her holo-form of sorts. Then it continues on from there._

_**Tell me what you think via a review please.**_)

You know how everything can be going fine after a big change and your adjusting, and then something else comes and changes and it puts you in a terrible mood? Well, that's been happening to me.

So it's been about a week, a terrible and horribly long week, and Sam, Mikaela, and Bumblebee are here and as much as I knew I should be ecstatic that our group is back together even for a short while, I cant bring myself to be with my current mood. Why has my week been terrible and horrible? I'll give you one word: Elita-1. She's, simply to put it, been smothering me. Elita-1 seems to take her role as an adopted parent way to seriously. She didn't like it when I would be baby-sat by humans; she claimed that I needed to spend more time with my own kind. She even went so far as to complain to Optimus, and he had apparently replied that they were busy with things and the humans didn't mind watching me, and that she shouldn't treat my like a normal sparkling because I clearly wasn't. They actually were busy with things; the human government was keeping everyone on their toes. Elita-1 ended up ignoring Optimus's warning, proving that what he said about her being stubborn or something of the sort true. I did like her sisters though, Chromia more so then Arcee. Chromia was more accepting that I was a smart sparkling, and seemed generally happy when she would baby-sit me. She claimed that I knew my weapons. She was right.

I know it's rude, but I acted quite cold to Elita-1 for a while, until I talked to Optimus. I wanted nothing to do with her; she was acting like she was my actual mother. I knew she didn't know that she was acting like she was trying to replace the only mother I've known and loved, but it pissed me off. It takes time to build any form of relationship, and the way she was acting didn't help ether.

I told Optimus, when we had talked, that I didn't like how Elita-1 was smothering me, and you know what he said? He said that was just how she acted; she was protective of sparklings and only wanted the best for me. I was tempted, oh so tempted, to tell him that was a load of bullshit. But I didn't, because at the time I didn't want to get in trouble. So I dealt with it, for a while, and I really didn't respond to her at all. I actually ignored her.

I hadn't really been able to practice talking; actually I pointedly don't speak around any of the bots anymore, or walking really, because I would only try when Elita-1 wasn't around. Elita-1 seemed to always be near Optimus if I was with him, and I hated it. I really did. Another thing; Elita-1 seemed dead set on me only recharging in one of their holds at night and during the day, so that at night they could cuddle and not worry about squishing me. In my opinion, I didn't see why they didn't move me to my own bed, or better yet _room_. Elita-1 also didn't want extra things in her hold while I was in there for some reason, so I was left without my blanket and pillow. I haven't slept since the first time Elita-1 put me in her hold, which was two days after we returned to Diego Garcia. I also haven't been in Optimus's hold since. What I do in that hellhole of a hold is sit there and just think. I've had lots of time to think… I'm also in a bad mood, have been for several days, and I'm tired. So very tired…

Because Elita-1 has come and threw my life for another loop, man I sound like a spoiled child, I've started to grow distant from Optimus. I don't see him as often, only for my feedings because I refuse to eat for Elita-1 and for sleeping. Occasionally I get to spend time with him during the day, but it seems to always be with Elita-1. To take the cake, I fell home sick. I miss my human family, and I want to go see my mother's grave. But because I can't, its put me in a fouler mood then have been all week.

Currently I'm hiding out beneath a beast of a tank, yep a tank, wallowing in my own depression and need to cry and lash out angrily... and I'm hiding from Elita-1. I don't usually do these kinds of things, but with all the stress that's been going on, I don't want to be near anyone. I want to be alone, wedged between inanimate metal and the concrete ground. I've been so tempted as of late to snap at Elita-1, or scratch her. Anything to get her to give me more space and leave me alone.

My human group of friends seems to be having none of that though. Mikaela, being the smallest out of the four here, was half way beneath the tank reaching for me who was on the far side of the tank that was parked in front of a wall. "Come on Nightstrider, you cant stay under here forever." Mikaela grunted.

Using my voice for the first time in a couple days, I croaked, "Go away…"

There was some scrabbling noises, and then Sam joined us under the wide but low tank as far as he could go in. "No, not until you come out here and tell us what's wrong." He said. Will and Epps soon joined Sam, as they crammed under the tank.

"Come on kid," Epps encouraged, "Tell us what's eating at you."

"Go away. Want be alone." I said. I scooted further back as hands reached for me and Mikaela scooted further into my hiding space.

"Why?" Will asked. "We've noticed you've been in a bad mood lately, and you seem tired."

I glared at them with tired eyes. "None your business." I stated with a low rumble. I just wanted to be left fucking alone. Couldn't they see that?

Mikaela persisted. "Friends talk about things to other friends, including problems. Were your friends, and your ours, so talk to us." She paused for a moment, "If were not your friends, tell us so, and we'll go and never bother you again."

Well shit. Kind of an ultimatum then huh. I sighed and moved to turn my head away. "Friends yes." Ooh, there's a vent next to the treads, and its open... If I can get to it, I can get myself inside and not have to deal with anyone until I'm ready.

"Then talk. Please." Will stated.

I sighed and covered my optics with my hands. I can't tell them everything. "Homesick." I stated. "Miss family."

"But you see Optimus and Elita-1 everyday, so how can you miss your-" I ended up cutting Sam off in mid sentence.

I sighed again. "Not them. Real family." I could hear an approaching tire rolling heavily across the ground, but couldn't see anything passed the bodies lying in front of me. "Miss real mom."

"But they are your family now! Optimus is your dad, and Elita-1 is your mom!" Mikaela protested. I hissed at her. Elita-1 was not my mother, and never would be with how she was making me feel. Not to mention the smothering…

The deep feminine tone that I had grown to severely dislike sounded out, making the humans slide out from under the tank to see whom it was. "What is going on here?" Elita-1 questioned.

I uncovered my optics and glared at the purple wheel outside my sanctuary. "Nightstrider seems to be feeling homesick, and says she misses her family." I heard Epps inform her. Traitor... "She wont come out from where she's wedged herself beneath the tank."

"I see… Nightstrider, come out at this instant. There is no need for you to be like this when you're already home." Elita-1 commanded softly. I was not in the mood for this shit…

I didn't move.

"Fine." She sighed. I saw her shoo the humans away, and then she grasped the sides of the tank I'm guessing and flipped the tank on its side. There were a few choruses of aw at her strength. I didn't really give a flying rats ass how strong she was, only that she was, yet again, trying to take me with her. "Now that you don't have any place to hide, you're coming with me. You can come spend some time with Optimus and I, since he's been busy and he's free right now." She motioned to Optimus who stood on the other side of the hanger. He looked tired, but he seemed to be staring at us with love and contentment, as if he couldn't tell that I was pissed off and wanting to beat the shit out of something. Then she reached for me to scoop me up.

Crying in frustration sounded really good right now, but no way in hell was I going to cry here because people wont leave me alone. I don't know what it was, but it seems like all the stress, lack of sleep, anger, and homesickness, and shit that have been bothering me just kind of snapped my almost frustrated tears to anger and rage. Back when I was human, I went on a rage, said things I ether meant or didn't mean depending on who I was near. I didn't know if it was the same as a robot, but I really didn't care at the moment. I snapped. My claws slung out, steam rolled slightly out of my smokestacks, and I swung my hand claws at Elita-1's incoming hand. My claws were sharp, and though they were little they could do damage just the same. My claws left five scratches across her fingers. I growled loudly at her, "Leave. Me. Alone."

Elita-1 jerked her hand back and looked at the scratches. Her optics then looked back to me, and narrowed, "Nightstrider, that is no way to treat your mother."

I ended up shrieking, loudly, and making my voice box spark painfully. It made the humans cover their ears, because apparently sparklings are made to be loud with their screeches so their creators can hear them, and made Optimus start, and head towards us slowly.

"You not my mother! Never be mom! Real mom want me, not judge when first meet or stuff!" I shrieked. I flipped her off, "Fuck you!"

It was a stunned silence for a moment, until Optimus reached us and he gave a quiet rumble. It seemed that he had had enough of my dislike for Elita-1 as well. "Nightstrider, I'm disappointed in you. You are never to use such language; only Decepticons use those kinds of words to comrades. Didn't we talk about this? Apologize to your mother at once." he crossed his arms.

I looked up at him and then made myself stand. I crossed my arms for a moment, and then slowly and deliberately lifted a hand, and for once I flipped my adopted father off. "Fuck. You."

Then I screeched again angrily when I was scooped up quickly by Optimus, who had the most serious face he had ever taken with me. "We are going to talk about this. Alone." He sent a long tired look to Elita-1, and then carted me off.

I screeched as loud and as long as I could, and with a loud and painful pop, I fell silent when I couldn't screech anymore. I curled into a ball in the palm of Optimus, and let my armor stand up in a spiked manor so he couldn't get a good grip on me. Then I sat there, looking to the world like a spiked ball with door wings, and waited for the punishment that I wasn't in the mood for to come.

Embarrassment briefly crossed my mind, at what I had done in front of my friends. And then horror, at what I could have done to them if I'd of snapped at them. Then it just settled on a slightly calming emotionless numbness that I usually got after I raged and my emotions were spent.


	19. Alone

(_**I'm so sorry that I haven't been able to get another chapter posted sooner! Life's been hectic, and I've been busy with work and all. So I hope you all can accept my sincerest apologies and enjoy this chapter filled with various things!**_)

You know the phrase 'it gets worse before it gets better'? When I didn't think it could get any worse, it did. My temper got the best of me, and right now my southern temper I inherited from my mama only got me in a world of trouble. My mother southern temper meant she was slightly slow to anger, depending on the day, and when she was angry it was for a long time.

Today was not my day. I was short to anger, and stayed so for a while.

I was pissed. Raging angry. I would have torn apart a tank if I could have. Anger, rage, shame, and numerous other things were bubbling up inside me. I wanted to cry, I wanted to scream, I wanted to beat the ever-living shit out of something, anything, anyone. But most of all… deep down inside me, I was hurting. Bringing up my mother always made me hurt inside. I miss her, and probably always will. Like with Optimus's sparkling Orion, there's a void, inside my spark. I knew if my mother were still alive, she would have resided there, and the void just seems to grow the more that I dwell on it. But it's hard not to dwell on it. So I for now I just change my hurt to anger, and my anger to my rage.

I had been brought to Ratchet, so he could give me something for my throat so I could explain myself. I didn't uncurl willingly; he actually had to pry me back into my two-legged form and restrained me to the bed, and then he had to force me to drink it. I wanted nothing to do with anyone at the moment. When the nasty concoction was poured down my throat, Optimus was handed a few more for me to take later, and was sitting like lead in my tank, I curled back into a ball, blowing smoke from my smokestacks and rumbling angrily. There were words exchanged, in rapid clicks, and Optimus had probably informed Ratchet of what I had done. Then I was scooped up, not gently, but not roughly, into Prime's hand, and then I was taken away.

I was set down some place, uncurling just a bit revealed it to be Optimus's office and I was on his desk, I heard him begin pacing. I twitched my door wings in time with each of his steps. Step, step, step, step, turn on his toes, step, step, step, step, repeat. Finally the rhythm stopped, and I could hear Optimus give a mighty sigh and drop down into his giant chair.

"Nightstrider, please… what could possibly make you say that? Did you not promise me that you wouldn't use language like that?" He sighed. I heard him shifting a bit, and then the sound of metal on metal. I said nothing, only rumbled louder and poured out more smoke. "Please, talk to me. I can't help fix it if I don't know what to repair."

I uncurled and looked at him, my armor still standing in jagged spikes. He looked so stressed, sitting there with his head in his hands and his elbows on his desk. His optics had been closed, but when I spoke they opened and he looked to me. "Wanted be alone." My throat sparked, but I didn't feel a thing. "No one let me. Was angry. Still angry." I grinded my claws slightly and flicked my door wings angrily. My smokestacks still poured pollution into the air. "Elita-1 not my mom." I stated.

"Looks like we're getting somewhere… Why would you want to be alone?" He sighed heavily again, and a large blast of air from his intakes nearly blew me backwards. "Elita is my sparkmate, and you are my daughter. Therefore, she is considered your mother."

"Never mom. Real mom listen what say." I hissed. "Never replace."

"Replace?" He asked me. Why did it sound like he was about to go all doctor Phil on me? "What are you talking about? Your biological femme creator? Is she still out there? Is that why you said those words?"

I brought a hand up my chasis, and clenched it over my spark. "No. Dead. Gone forever." I felt the void widen, and felt my rage at everything rise. I rumbled angrily. "Said words 'cause," I clicked, "promised no cyber-curses."

"I see." He was silent for the moment. Optimus seemed to be thinking. He then blinked at me and then said, "You feel the void. That's why you wanted to be alone. But doesn't being near Elita help, like you did for me?"

"No, make worse…" I said simply. "Want be alone to think. Think why I felt much." I grunted. "Hate that she bring memories. Hate she make me remember."

"Elita brings memories?"

I nodded. "Of mother. Makes me want mom. Make wish she lived." I clicked a few times. "Wish I had her longer."

"How old were you when she offlined?"

"Young." I said vaguely.

"I see."

He looked so tired to be dealing with this. I just needed to be alone, to think, to feel, to hurt, and to mourn. Maybe I can get him to leave me alone if he goes to bed or something. "Look tired Op'mus." He blinked at me.

"Yes. Dealing with the human government can do that to you. You look tired too."

"Don't sleep. Not comfortable. Don't feel safe with Elita-1." I clicked her name angrily. Saying her name brought a fresh wave of anger through me, and made my engine roar in rage again. "Makes angry. Smothers. Won't let see friends. Don't want near humans. Want away. No more hell hold. Want alone. Want alone now. Want own room." I snarled in tune with my engine. If my voice had been at its human depth, it probably would have sounded menacing. Now, it sounds like some sort of angry mouse. And that only made me angrier.

"Nightstrider!" Optimus barked suddenly. "I am not kidding you when I say you are not to use foul language again." Oh, is that all you can worry about, huh? If I curse or not? Well, fuck you Prime. Fuck you until your Jungle fucked! He got a far away look for a moment, and then he was back. "I can't let you be alone Nightstrider. You're in trouble for saying what you did, and striking at Elita-1. You're also too young for your own room. I've comm. linked her and told her to come get you. She's going to put you in her hold so you can-"

"NO!" I roared and cut him off. Probably not my smartest idea here, but at the moment I couldn't have given a flying rhinos ass about that. "Never listen! Said don't want her! NO! Not sleep in hold! Will go mute before that! Hate her! NO!" I scrabbled to get to my hands and knees so I could escape. I would rather fall and hurt myself then be near her right now! I wanted to be fucking alone! Alone to suffer on my own like I always have dealt with it.

"Nightstrider!" Optimus stood abruptly. His seemingly never-ending patience was finally frayed it seemed. His fists slammed on ether side of me, and his fingers interlocked, trapping me in. His head, massive compared to me, loomed over me as I turned to look at him. "I will not stand by while you bad mouth your mother! Your in trouble, you know this! You will be spending the next several hours in her hold until you calm down enough to apologize for what you have done! Do you understand me?"

I said nothing. I glared at him now, my claws clenching and unclenching.

"Do. You. Understand. Me." He more or less stated.

I glared harder at him. Anger makes people say things, things they ether mean or don't mean. For me, I didn't mean it. At all. I struggled for my tongue to make the full sentence, but I said it anyways with as much vehemence as possible. "I hope you rot in hell." Immediately, I regretted the action. Not only did it make a new wrenching void, like I had just lost my parent all over again, but Optimus recoiled like he had been slapped in the face and shot in the spark. All smoke died from my smokestacks, and almost all of the anger left my body. My spark… hurt. Like I had gotten smacked in the face by a trusted one, and then shot in the spark by that same person.

A flash of hurt crossed his optics, and then his face-hardened. Elita-1 knocked and was given the okay to come in, and then she came strolling through the office door like she owned the place. "I see. Very well. Lets hope you learn your lesson. You'll find you wont like being alone. Elita," he shifted his gaze to her. "Put Nightstrider in the spare room across the hall from ours."

"But Optimus!" Elita-1 protested. "She's just a sparkling! She's to young for that!"

"She is old enough it seems for her to say this." My spark wrenched again as my voice, specifically the last sentence I said, played through his speakers. The anger and malice in my own voice made it hurt all the worse. He seemed to stiffen, as if he was trying to keep himself from slumping. "Just do this for me, and meet me here in the office. I… need to talk with you. Actually, just meet me in our room…"

She sighed. "Alright." I didn't even respond much as she scooped me up. All I did was roll into that spiked ball with wings and smokestacks again, though this time it was more force full. I didn't want to move. I couldn't believe I had said that.

She toted me to a room, Optimus's footsteps falling a little bit behind hers, across the hall from their room. Optimus turned into their room. In the room that I was being held in, there wasn't much. I didn't care really… right now I didn't care for anything furniture wise. I uncurled myself. The room itself had a normal bot sized bed, and a desk pushed against the wall.

Elita-1 put me down on the floor. She stared at me for a moment, as I could do was sit there and just stare off into space. She said nothing, thank god for that, and then turned to leave.

I just sat there for the longest time, feeling the pain from the new void. It felt like it would consume me. Devour me whole. In fact, if it would have gotten me away from the pain in my spark then I would have gone along with it and let it eat me. But as it was, it would only cause more pain then relieve. I managed to get myself up and crawling, jerkily albeit, across the floor. I crawled under the dusty space between the bed and the floor, little as it may be, and then just flopped there about half way under the bed.

I brought my arm up to muffle the noise, bit down, and began to screech. I would let who ever would even be able to hear know, that I fucked up, it hurt, and I didn't think it'd ever be fixed.

When my vocal processor fritzed completely, sending a little splat of energon and sparks onto my arm, my pained screeches fell silent. I just lay there, feeling and looking for the most part dead. I closed my optics and just let myself wallow in the new void, joining the first.

I knew. I really did know. From my little outburst of feelings and words, that whatever bond I could have had with Optimus was ether gone, or really diminished. For the first time in a long, long, long while, I was totally, utterly, and completely alone.

Alone, under a dusty bed, just waiting for the pain in my spark to consume my soul. I wonder how many voids a spark can take before it fades from existence. If it did fade from existence, I would still be alone. Utterly alone. Dead with the dust. And still alone.


	20. Bond

(_**Lots of reviews! I love them, and they give me ideas! So thank you to all who do review. We'll see how the story goes. As for Nightstrider? Well, you'll all just have to wait and see ^^ and sorry if they seem a little OOC. There was just no right way to write this chapter. Now all should be getting better soon!**_

Furthermore, I now have xbox live! My gamer tag is NightStridr , yep its not a typo there's no E in it, if you want to give me a chime. Jus let me know who 'ya are though ^^ don't want any creepers talking to me and ruining my writing brain.

Oh my gosh, I cant believe I've written twenty chapters so far! This is insane, I feel as though I'm still so far back in the story!)

Losing someone you care about is traumatizing. It really is. Coping with that loss for years and then having it brought up is painful. Even worse, losing the only father you've ever known because you couldn't keep your mouth shut. It makes you feel low, lower then dirt. Make me feel like I should be swimming with the dinosaurs…

Lying under that bed, I began to try and cope in my own way. I just started bottling it up, trying to draw my mind away from the empty voids. I focused on my rage at being here. And it worked. For a little while anyway. Then the pain was back, but I couldn't make a sound. My vocal processor had blown or something when I had screeched so much. To much action. I dunno. All I knew is that it was leaking energon at a slow rate, though it didn't hurt because of that med stuff.

So laying here under the bed, trying to keep myself sane, I began to realize something. This was, in a way, my entire fault. I couldn't shut my mouth and just go with it. It wasn't Elita-1's fault that I blew up at Optimus, though she did bring me to the breaking point. I screwed up, and I know it now.

It was too quiet under the bed. No dust bunnies, just thick layers of dust itself. I began tapping my fingers after retracting my claws. It was just a simple noise, but it seemed to echo far. I traced a hand along through the dust, making swirls and little shapes. I didn't really have a sense of time. I just drew, erased, and drew some more, my images getting more and more violent each time.

I heard a door open some time later, a couple hours at least I'm guessing since lights had been flashing across my vision occasionally stating I needed to feed, and them two sets of heavy feet moving across the room. "I don't see her Optimus…" Elita-1 commented. I shifted a bit and watched her wheel over to look at the desk.

"She's in here." I heard Optimus rumble. He sounded tired still, emotionally and physically. "She's small, so look under things." Not much to look under. I saw Optimus get closer to the bed, and then he squatted. His large hands pressed to the floor, and then he began to lower himself into my sight. I turned, though, away from him and faced the wall again. I heard his chassis scrape on the cement ground as he settled himself. "Elita," he called. "I found her."

I heard Elita roll across the floor, and then more noises like she, too, was settling her self on the floor. "Oh, the poor thing." I heard something scooting towards me, like a hand. I stiffened and moved further towards the wall. They wanted me to be alone, and alone I shall be. That is my punishment, I was a soldier, and I know how to take my punishment and go with it though I'm never happy to do it. The scraping thing stilled. "Optimus, she still doesn't want me to touch her. Even in her recharge…" Elita sighed quietly. "I just want her to accept me…" If I weren't trying not to go dwelling on the voids again, I would have snorted. Well, maybe. My vocal processor isn't working right to get the noise made.

"She's not asleep Elita. She's listening right now, isn't the right Nightstrider?" I heard the bunk above me groan and tilt slightly as one of the bigger bots lifted the edge a bit so they could do something. I don't know what exactly they were doing. "Nightstrider, look at me," An order. Not a shot in hell… "Please?"

I shifted just enough I could see them, but they couldn't see the energon oozing lazily down my throat cables. I stared blankly at them. Optimus had lifted the bunk so he could fit his massive shoulders under it. Elita was next to him, the bunk not resting on her shoulders due to their size difference. Both of their optics glowed eerily in the darkness under the bunk, illuminating the expressions on their faces. Optimus had his calm face back on; Elita had a calm calculating look, like she knew something. Both had the dust from beneath the bunk on their chassis's.

"Optimus," Elita angled her head and tried to whisper to her sparkmate, "I've seen the look in her optics before. On the faces of comrades who feel like they have nothing left, like they're alone. Like they are marching to their deaths." And boy did I feel like that. I did have nothing left. I lost Optimus, my human friends were probably horrified by the rage I had, I had no mother, and I didn't have my human family any more. I was alone. Just like I had wanted…

"Shouldn't she still have her mech creator?"

"If she made the full bond with you then no, she never bonded with her mech creator."

"And I closed the bond earlier. I didn't think about the affects it would have on her because it wouldn't have affected me as much because I'm used to things like that…" So we did have a bond. It was dampened. But it was a bond… I felt him trying to open it, but didn't want him to feel what I'm feeling… that and I didn't know how to access it. He clicked something else to her in their home language. Optimus then said in English, "Please talk to us Nightstrider."

I said nothing. I couldn't. But I didn't have to. I shifted to I was lying on my stomach and then I got onto my hands and knee's. I stretched my head up, so my throat was visible. I knew what it would look like. Energon would be oozing, mixing with the dust I had been lying in, and then dripping into my chest plates. Some of it was crusted; I could feel it rubbing on and between my plates.

Optimus groaned and reached out. I slid back farther. "Let us take you to Ratchet, he can fix your throat cables before they get infected."

I wanted to go along with it. I really did. Anything to get me away from here, from under this bed and out into the fresh air. But it wasn't right. They had no obligation to me now that. What the hell. Nothing can get worse then it is now. I crawled forward into his range of reach.

I was snatched up gently, as if Optimus thought I would fall into a million pieces. I wouldn't. I couldn't. Elita withdrew herself and lifted the bunk. Optimus slid out, and then she put it back down. He stood with me in his palm, and I caught a look at myself in his chest mirror things. My optics looked like Elita had said they did. Haunted. Like I was walking to my death. I was coated in dust, the blue color of my energon blood sticking, mingling, running, and crusting to my throat cables and some of my chest armor.

I was cradled to Optimus's chassis, and then they headed off down the hall. I didn't react when they barged into the med bay, and when I was handed off to Ratchet. I was washed thoroughly in a small tub to remove the dust and dried nastiness, and then I was laid out flat on the med bed on my back like a pose-able doll. The only thing that moved was my antenna, and that was when there would be a flash of pain from my throat. My wings didn't even twitch. He welded some cables, and then Ratchet put these small bandages around some of the cables. Those would have to come off some time.

Ratchet also gave Elita and Optimus a wet rag to remove the dust from their limbs and chests.

When Ratchet was done, and all that could be done on my throat was done, Ratchet informed everyone what was wrong. "Her vocal processor glitched and ruptured due to high stress levels and because of the earlier episode that I gave you medication for. She wont be able to talk well for a while, though she should be able to say a few words if you give her that liquid from earlier." He sighed and stared at me. I stared back at him. "It's like she was screeching until her vocal processor couldn't take it anymore… what happened to cause that?" He addressed the adult bots that had brought me in.

Optimus sighed and ran a hand over his optics. "The issue from earlier escaladed. I closed off my bond with her when she said this," he replayed my voice again. "I didn't want her to feel…"

"I know." Ratchet interrupted. "She's suffering, you know." His blue gaze slid to me as I sat myself up. "Her spark is fighting to keep pulsing. To her spark, your closing of the bond was rejection, and because her femme creator is offline that meant that she was abandoned. Orphaned, actually." He let a sigh out his nose plates. "If she were any other sparkling, I would have her hooked to a spark stabilizer. You need to open the bond."

"You don't think I've tried? She wont let me in." Exasperated, Optimus gave a frustrated noise. I moved along to the edge of the bed, and then was snatched up by Elita. I didn't have it in me right now to protest.

"Then shove your way in. You're her father, like it or not, her spark will calm once you've reassured her. Try apologizing for closing the bond, or what ever else." Ratchet fetched a bottle and handed it to Optimus, who subspaced it. "When you can get her to drink this, please do. She needs it right now. She also needs a femme creator bond." He sent a glance at Elita. "I know she doesn't want you, but don't give up. Her processor doesn't listen to her spark. To thick headed for that." Hey, that's uncalled for. "She wants freedom, and for you to back off a bit. She's different from most sparklings, more independent but not at the same time. She doesn't take immediately to anything, but when she does she holds on to it. She thinks your trying to replace her mother."

"How do you know this?" Elita questioned.

Ratchet just gave a small half smile. "I'm a medic. I have my ways." Sure, just like human doctors claim to know what's wrong with you. "I would suggest letting her recharge between the two of you tonight, or better yet inside Optimus's hold. She needs to be close to your spark Optimus, both for bonding and for recharging. Her body is tired; she hasn't been getting enough recharge for one reason or another. Nightstrider should have already gone into emergency stasis for recovering lost energy, and it doesn't help that she might be going into a growing stage soon." He narrowed his optics, "Optimus, as your medical officer I'm putting you on temporary leave to get everything in order. Three days minimal, a week maximum. Now shoo, I'm busy, very busy. Scat!"

We were shooed out of the med bay and the door was shut loudly behind us before Optimus could protest or argue. There were no words said as Optimus lead Elita down the halls to their room. When we were in, both bots took a seat on the bed and I was set on Optimus's knee. We sat in silence for a while. I felt a prodding at the void like bond. It was a gently nudging. I shoved it away. It shoved back. I built up a wall to keep it out, to keep it from getting in. It began slamming into the wall repeatedly.

"Let me in, Nightstrider. I'm not mad at what you said to me." Yeah well I'm mad at myself. I shouldn't have said that. I would apologize if I could, more or less if my pride would let me, and if Elita wasn't here. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have shut down the bond. I just didn't want you feeling what your words did to my spark… I should have listened."

It was quiet for a bit.

"I shouldn't have been so pushy. I should have listened to what you said, and paid attention to what you wanted instead of what I thought you wanted." Elita said quietly. I blinked at her. Her optics were dim, as if it bothered her to admit she was wrong. "I haven't been trying to replace your mother. I just wanted you to accept me like you do Optimus." I simply nodded. Maybe with time… we could get along. We would unquestionably butt heads in the future, fight, and probably drive everyone bonkers, but it might just work. Maybe…

I felt the prodding again, now just simply asking to be let through the wall. I lowered it, brick by painful brick, and felt the bond flowing back and slowly filling the emptiness that had taken its place. I felt worry, regret, remorse, and a dozen other emotions all brush against me, but love stood out the most. I sent my own emotions back.

"Share your pain, Nightstrider."

And so I did. I let my pain flow back through our bond. The pain of loss, the voids, and what ever else was plaguing my soul at the time. I had a thought, if the bond could send emotions and pain, then shouldn't it be able to send words? I tried, and sent what I hoped were words over the bond. "I'm sorry…I didn't mean it."

"I know." Came right back at me.

I was lifted up, ever so gently, and then I was held to Optimus's chassis. I could feel his spark reaching out to reassure me, and himself, that he wasn't abandoning me. I didn't think he was, but I suppose my spark thought differently. I felt my own spark reach out to him, and it even brushed against Elita's own spark. I didn't want to yet, but my spark only let her know that I knew and understood but it wouldn't be easy.

Optimus subspaced the bottle, gave me a dose of the liquid for my throat, and then reclined me backwards into the crook of his arm. I didn't feel the hunger in my tank, but I saw the lights in front of my eyes that said I needed to refuel. Elita leaned on his shoulder and watched as I fed. I drank the whole bottle of my favorite tart sparkling energon. When it was done, Elita was the one who subspaced it.

Optimus subspaced my pillow and blankets, and then looked to Elita. They seemed to communicate silently, because Elita hopped up and went to turn the lights off. Optimus reclined backwards on the bed, setting me down on top of his chest plates. I was given my blankets and pillow, and u cuddled with them Oh how I missed them… maybe Elita would get a hint.

Elita climbed softly over Optimus's legs and settled down next to him. I was too tired to shift away or anything. I just curled tighter into my blankets and buried my face into my pillows. I heard her shift colder, and then I'm guessing she set her head on his arm. His other arm was flat until the elbow, and then it curled up and over me. Hesitantly, another smaller hand joined Optimus's hand in cupping me. When I didn't react, accept a twitch of my door wings, she relaxed and her hand loosened.

My last thoughts before I drifted into a tired sleep to the soft rumble of Optimus's engine were; maybe, just maybe, everything would be all right after all.


	21. Change

(_**I would like to thank all my reviewers for their words of praise, their alert subscriptions, and etcetera! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this little time skip.**_)

A lot has gone on in the almost two years, its been about eighteen months give or take a few days, that passed since our reconciliation. My throat has healed nicely, and I'm usually fully functional. N.E.S.T has expanded, by about eighty or so men. Maybe more, maybe less. I don't really know; I never bothered to count the humans. Sam told us that in a couple of months he was going away to college. I told him to go for it, and slyly told him also to avoid any blonds called Alice. We got three more Autobots that arrived, some bot named Jolt, and two smaller bots called Skids and Mudflap who were twins. Let me tell you, they were a riot! They always pissed off the other bots, on occasion they pissed me off too, with their constant gangster slang and squabbling. Jolt was quiet, but always seemed ready to help, and was currently Ratchets assistant in the med bay. I sometimes helped out in the med bay too, when they needed some intricate work done that required smaller hands, but usually I just pass messages and orders from one end of the base to another. I wasn't good, but I wasn't bad ether. The base itself grew a bit larger, to accommodate the new arrivals.

That's not the only thing that's changed ether. I changed. I grew, a lot. And it was painful, oh so painful. There would be days I couldn't move, as my body would grow. I found out that I had to block the bond between my foster parents and I for them to function correctly during the day at all. Yep I bonded with Elita-1 too, when we had a heart to heart moment because the twins thought it would be funny to lock us in a room. But that's a tale for another day. Back to the growing pains thing; Ratchet actually had me in the med bay for a day because I was in so much pain that even blocking the bond wasn't working. He had to sedate me, and I was drugged up for the whole day… robot drugs, when your so hopped up your seeing things, make you say some of the strangest things, and some of them aren't fit for anyone to hear. The twins though, thought it was the funniest thing since Youtube. Apparently I asked Ratchet if I could see the 'pretty pink tooth fairy', A.K.A Ironhide, and when he said no I called him a 'horrible lemon squid monster' and begged the 'big bubbly bear', A.K.A my Papa, to save me from Ratchets 'lemony squid-ness'. Yes, robot drugs are the shit dude, and make you not feel a thing.

According to Ratchet, there was nothing in my system to make me have such radical growth spurts. It has him stumped. In all honesty, I think it's that old robot Primus fucking with my systems for the hell of it. Speaking of that old coot, I haven't seen or heard a peep from him since I got scolded for trying to tell them who I was. I've accepted that I'm a robot permanently, well unless I die of course, about as much as anyone can. I still miss my human family, but I know that life continues on.

I also got to celebrate Halloween and Christmas. That was a load of fun! We had a big party for each, and back when I was around four foot maybe almost five foot or so I got to have a costume made for me in secret by Ratchet. I went as a werewolf, complete with moving jaws, and due to the fact I could access the Internet now I downloaded howls and growls to freak everyone out. Ironhide, whom had giant bright pink fairy wings on his back due to sweet 'lil Annabelle, thought I had come to murder the humans and had taken a defensive stance. Poor Optimus looked like he would have had a hernia if he were capable to. Everything was resolved when Ratchet broke out in chuckles and then spilled the beans.

Then there was the Christmas fiasco… During our Christmas party, the bots were freaking out over the fact that someone could get passed any security system, watched you twenty four seven and three hundred and sixty five days a year, and would technically break into your house and leave things. So it had to be smoothed over that he was simply fictional, well he wasn't to me because I've always believed in Santa, and wouldn't do any actual harm. But the next morning, while the bots were still weirded out that they got gift cards from Santa to go to a car wash and wax, I got a sharpening kit so I could keep my claws sharp and a couple books that were large enough that I could still read them even after I grew bigger.

So now I stood at eight foot even, weighed .4 tons, or eight hundred pounds. I got really heavy, but I honestly think it's the armor that makes me that heavy. I'm a part time medical assistant and full time messenger girl. I've been training under Ironhide and Chromia with my claws and my shoulder blasters, yup there's two of them, and I do have to say I'm proficient in both. Well, I'm better with my claws then with my blaster. With my blaster, even if its considered cheating, I call what ever I hit my target. I even hit Ironhide in the ass. He laughed it off, and told me that it was better to hit there then the other spot, other wise I would have had Chromia 'on my aft for damaging her toy'. Lemme tell you, that was _way_ more information then I could have _ever_ needed to know about our weapon specialists.

Further more, I recently as in about a month ago found out that I have an alternate mode, alt mode for short. I turn into a customized 1987 automatic GMC Jimmy, complete with my purple flames and smoke stacks. Only my car form is smaller then the actually car itself. It's like the size of a large motorcycle, or clown car size. I can haul around small adults and kids, but regular people are scrunched. I'm not the best of drivers, but I do all right. I haven't crashed yet, or hit anyone yet.

I still sleep in Optimus and Elita's room, hardly ever Optimus's hold because I cant stretch out in it anymore, due to the fact that they weren't quite ready for me to be on my own yet. Apparently Cybertronian families are closer then human families, and often a sparkling will sleep with, or close to, its creators until it has reached full maturity, and even then sometimes until it has its own sparkmate. For me that was way to long, but I would go along with it for now since I don't know how much more I'll be growing. I don't want to wake up one morning and find I've crushed my bed. That would be embarrassing. When sense that Optimus and Elita want some 'alone time', I usually drag my ass to the Autobot couch and sleep there with my newer Autobot sized blanket and pillow. I can't kick the human habit of sleeping with them. Or sometimes I invade the med bay if they get especially loud in their noises because the rooms aren't sound proof. Ratchet doesn't mind, and I think it's because he doesn't want me to be mentally scarred for life. Two late for that, after hearing some of those noises.

We have two more arrivals due to arrive at earth soon, about two weeks if I overheard correctly, and were to land somewhere in Connecticut. They were confirmed to be Autobots, though no one knew who they were. There were already rooms prepared and medical beds ready incase one of them, or both, are injured in landing. It happens, that's what happened to Jolt. It screwed up something, and made some energon lines tear apart when he transformed back into his bipedal mode.

We haven't had much Decepticon activity, just a few attacks that we, Autobots as a whole, ether managed to get to before the cowards ran or we didn't.

So I currently am sitting here in the med bay with a good portion of my upper body, from the middle of my chassis and up, shifting through the plates and wiring of Ironhide's shoulder and arm. Chromia got a lucky shot in and it blew through his arm and shoulder, nearly severing the arm from his torso. And damn it all if I wish she had, because this was a mess. I had to strip off my outer upper armor and flatten my wings to my own body in order to fit where I needed to with my tools, and I had to go in deep because of the extensive damage so I had Ironhide's energon all over me and my armor from before I took it off. Ratchet was instructing me by a little camera he had stuck between my eyes. Jolt was out today on his day off, and I got stuck helping Ratchet out in the med bay today. I didn't really want to be here today, since I hadn't gotten a good nights sleep last night or the night before. I would rest, but it just wouldn't give me the energy I needed, and it didn't help that all day yesterday and early this morning before I got roped into working in the med bay I spend the day playing messenger and what not

I felt Ironhide shift restlessly beneath me as I grabbed a couple sensory wires to move them out of the way, "Hey squirt, watch what wire's your grabbing!" he scolded.

I snorted and finished shifting the wires aside. "Not my fault your ticklish Ironhide." I grunted as I welded some cables together. I shifted the wires back into place, which got me a disgruntled grunt from the mech I was working on and a rumbling chuckle from Ratchet.

I worked for another hour or two, ending around nine o'clock because I finished early, before I was finished with the internal wirings and welding to the cables. Ratchet had to do the big work and all, because I was too small to be able to do everything he could, and because I wasn't experienced enough to do that. Welding cables and fixing wires was one thing, but fixing up giant wounds on a giant mech was a totally different thing.

When I slid from the wound onto the bed, I found my pile of armor and set myself to strapping it back on and removing the camera. It fit as usual, and when I was done, I was snatched by the scruff bar by a set of huge hands, the thing I always seemed to be grabbed at and carried, and set gently on the floor.

"Drink this, go shower and then get some recharge, youngling, your body needs it." Ratchet instructed me and handed me my usual small dose of Energon.

I sighed and took it, but nodded and headed out. I drank it on the way. I stopped in the bathrooms and snagged a free room to go clean off. Very rarely did I shower with anyone from my adopted family, only when I was pretty much useless from growth spurts or if I had an exceptionally rough day in training and ended up stiff. Sometimes, very rarely, it would be a random thing, I'd be in the middle of something and then I'm snatched up and stolen away to the showers. So I scrubbed myself down, my armor, under my armor, and even between my wires. I found myself purring lightly when I scrubbed my antenna and my little ear spikes.

When everything was all clean of the blue fluid and I was dry, it was around nine fifty at night; I headed back out and towards our room. I didn't make it there though, because I could hear noises as I stopped just outside the door. I sighed loudly. They were at it again.

"Well, looks like I'm on the couch tonight." I said to myself as I turned to walk away.

I walked back to the living room that was rarely used by anyone other them myself and went to my storage spot. It was dark, so I had only the light of my optics to guide my way. It was really just an alcove in the wall that I held my blankets and pillow in. When I had my blankets and pillow in my arms, I trudged to the couch, my door wings drooping tiredly. I laid my pillow just below the arm rest, spread out my blanket and then got myself all situated.

I sighed and stared silently up at the roof and began tracing patterns in it before I fell asleep.


	22. Savage Arrival

(_**IMPORTANT PLEASE READ: Hey ya'll. So, I'm now on crutches and pain meds because of an accident at a river. I was walking along some rocks, helping some kids I knew catch some crawdads, and I slipped. I now have what I affectionately call my 'third butt cheek' or Tiffany for short located just below my right butt cheek. It's not broken as far as I know; I just can't put any pressure on my femur, and am currently sitting at the computer on a pillow in pain.**_

_**So enjoy this next chapter as things start getting into motion with them here.**_

_**Oh, and I apologize for any incorrect things about Connecticut and about the crappy fight scene cause I'm no god at those.. I cant google anything at all because it always redirects me to something to do with condoms. I don't know why it chose condoms, but it did…**_)

So we're here in some vacant valley that's surrounded in mini mountains in Connecticut. There isn't any civilization for a couple hundred miles, or so I was told. It's been thirteen days since the last time I slept on the couch, two since I first slept under the stars, and our comrades were due to be arriving at any time today. We have a temporary camp set up under some tall trees and most of us have taken to sleeping in their car forms. I myself found that I liked to be in my bipedal form and watch the stars at night. I had missed doing this. It was another thing I had used to do as a human. I could always find Orion and the big and little dipper.

There were only a few of us here currently and that included Optimus, Elita, Ratchet, the Chevy twins, and myself of course. Arcee, Ironhide, Chromia, and Jolt were left at the base to keep it in order. The only reason I was allowed to come was because we had gotten a last minute message from one of the bots stating that his brother was hurt badly by a large roving Decepticon band, and that a nasty little bot called Savage was the one who tore up his brother badly, and needed medical attention immediately upon landing. Apparently Savage liked long distance attacks, and very rarely got up close and personal. They also stated that they may be followed by the 'Cons. Anyways, I could reach things easier then Ratchet could inside of a mech, so that was my use. I was ordered to keep out of the fight at all times if there was one, and to try and stay near one of the bigger bots so they could protect me. I wasn't planning on it, I wasn't going to be the one to get them killed, I would take care of myself and who ever was hurt.

Furthermore, I've learned more about fixing a mech. Ratchet had me fix up Mudflap after he got the shit beat out of him by Ironhide because he said something that made the mech rage. I got to do all the patchwork, rewiring, welding, and repainting to his new parts. I had to replace his entire left leg from the knee down, his right arm from the elbow down, and a couple blasts to his torso. The only reason I was able to do this was because I got a data pack from Ratchet. Data packs are things that get downloaded into your processor, like fighting skills, medical skills, and torture skills.

So here we were, six Autobots and a small platoon of humans that consisted of Will, Epps, and eight other unnamable humans who I didn't know, standing in a clearing scanning the sky for our arrivals. I was seated half on top of a fallen tree, my claws dug deeply into the bark to keep my balance, and half on Skids's shoulder. I wasn't watching the sky; I was watching a squirrel eat some sort of nut on a tree branch. It was kind of odd, with its little mouth chewing fast and its tail twitching warily at me, but it was cute nonetheless. Suddenly it stilled, and then took off into the brush.

"I see them! And something else!" I heard Optimus call so all could hear.

I turned to look into the sky. There were two balls of flame in the lead, I figured that those were the Autobots, and then further off was roughly twenty or more flaming balls of metal that looked like they were going to crash a couple miles from our position. The two in the lead looked like they were headed right for us, and upon a trajectory check, I found that they were indeed heading straight for us. I slid away from Skids's shoulder and the log and moved to the far side of our camp with the bots and the humans following.

As they neared the ground, I curled myself over Will and Epps to shield them from the dirt thrown up. The larger bots turned away and shielded us from the dirt and stuff thrown. I saw the squirrel from before go flying between Optimus's legs and passed my face. I guess it didn't move fast enough. When everything settled down, we all uncurled and moved a bit away from each other.

Ratchet and I were quick to gather our tools and then we paced to the trenches created from our falling friends and then started down them. The other bots and humans stayed at our ruined camp to go intercept the Decepticons that had surely landed by now. Ratchet and I came upon one mech in burnt gray armor coaching another one in the same kind of armor to shift out of his meteorite form. The one who was already transformed, and had head fin like things, had a few scratches an a couple energon leaks but was otherwise fine. The one, who just finished transforming however, was a totally different pack of cigarettes. Ratchet rumbled something about twin spawns of Unicron. Dunno what that means…

This mech was damaged. Very much so. He was leaking energon everywhere, there was a large hole blasted in his lower torso that sloped upward, a couple of chunks of his arms and legs were gone, and gears and what not were sparking as he laid there motionless on the ground. His optics happened to be online though, so that was both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because he was still alive and aware and not in stasis lock, bad because he would be aware of everything that went on around him and of the pain he was in.

"Ratchet!" the lesser-damaged mech called once he caught sight of us, "Help him!" it was more of a demand then a plea, but oh well. We moved to the fallen mech as I heard cannon blasts in the distance. Looks like our team found the Decepticons.

"Move it Sunstreaker!" Ratchet snapped at the mech Sunstreaker. So if this was Sunstreaker, then the bleeding mech on the ground was Sideswipe. Well shit, I knew Sideswipe was in the movie, but not Sunstreaker. Maybe I changed the plot somehow? "Strider." Ratchet said to me as Sunstreaker moved out of the way, but kept watch for anything like a big robotic guard dog from hell. "The shot that went through Sideswipe's chassis just missed his spark chamber. It hit a lot of main lines that I need you to get to while I close off the rest out here."

"Got it. Grab me the welder and some clamps please." I stated. I knew I would have to go body diving, which sounds weird, so I began stripping off my outer layer of armor. I stripped the armor off down to my waist, and then collected the pre-requested tools. I began scaling Sideswipes body until I could get to the hole in his chest. I would have to start at the back and work my way up.

"What the frag is he doing?" I heard Sunstreaker growl. "He's gonna hurt Sideswipe doing that!"

"No she's not. Nightstrider is the only one who can reach the smaller wires without surgically opening him up." Ratchet replied smoothly. I could feel the vibrations of him starting on Sideswipe's legs. "Go help the others Sunstreaker. We have your brother covered."

"But-" I heard Sunstreaker go to protest as I slipped myself into the hole in the mech beneath me. It was roomy for me, which wasn't a good thing, and I could reach everything I needed to; Thankfully the blast wasn't a through and through so there was no need for a patch to be put on his back.

"No buts. You're going to draw unwanted attention to us here." Ratchet once again replied smoothly. I heard a frustrated growl and then stomping feet. I'm guessing that Sunstreaker went to go help get rid of our pests.

Further away, I could hear Sunstreaker exclaim angrily, "I'm going to rip that fragger Savage's spark out and crush it between my fingers!" Well I sincerely hope he does.

I started in the back, clamping lines to prevent more leakage and then going back and removing the clamps one at a time and welding the cables back together. The nannites inside the mechs body could fix up the welds and then eventually there would be no evidence of there ever being a weld on the cable. I noticed a small crack in his spark chamber, and flipped myself slightly and welded it back together. His body jolted beneath me and I heard a high-pitched whine that hurt my audios. I stroked my hand gently near the new weld and made a few soothing clicks then went back to work as Sideswipe stopped that horrid whining.

When I finished welding and rewiring everything about an hour later, I slid myself out and saw that Ratchet was done with all the other wounds. I was covered in Sideswipe's energon, and my hands slipped a little when Ratchet handed me a patch to weld on. I was welding it on, when I heard Ratchet swear up a storm.

"One of the Twins has been hurt frag it all. The glitch ridden 'Cons scattered and sent everyone on a wild chase! Youngling, stay with Sideswipe and comm. link me if you need me. I'll be back soon." I nodded to him and then Ratchet was off running though the forest towards the sounds of battle.

I continued my welding until the patch was secured. When it was secured and there was no way for anything to get in or out, I shut off my welder. I slid gently down the side of the mech, replaced my armor onto myself, and then went to our supplies. There were a few small containers of energon, so I grabbed a couple and walked silently to Sideswipes head. I could see that he was watching me, studying me.

I tapped gently on the side of his faceplates. "Hey, open up so I can give you your energon." He clicked and whirred something to me. I don't know what he said though. "I'm sorry, I don't speak Cybertronian."

His words seemed a little fuzzy, but I could understand them. "Who are you?" he repeated. He sounded like he was about to fall asleep, meaning he needed to get some energon in him before he did.

"Femme Nightstrider, at your service." I commented dryly. "Now open up, or I'll pry your mouth open." He opened up as I had asked. I poured the energon in slowly, and let him swallow it, as he needed to. It took him a few minutes, to finish them both because I didn't want all the energon at once to bother his tanks. When he was done I gathered the reusable containers and folded them down. I gave him a brief pat on the side of his face with my free hand before I moved away. "There you go big guy. You can have more later."

I didn't receive thanks, nor did I expect to, but instead I got a question instead. "Youngling?"

"You could say that." I said dryly as I put the empty containers away. I then stood up and looked at myself. I needed a shower. Seriously. I was covered in energon, even though most of it had run off of my under armor. "I don't seem like it do I?"

"No." his reply was flat.

My audio receptors picked up something. As Sideswipe was about to say something, I cut him off, "Shh, I hear something. Comm. link Ratchet for me please, let him know." Something a little bigger then the Twins crashed through the trees. I stood between it and my patient, who was struggling to move and was hissing 'Savage'. "Sit still damn it, I don't want to fix you again." I snapped at Sideswipe. He didn't still, but didn't do any damage to himself ether. But then and again, he couldn't get anything to work at the moment, so he was stationary.

I looked to the mech that Sideswipe had called Savage. He was roughly almost thirteen foot tall; his gray and blue flecked armor was jagged and looked quite uncomfortable. He wasn't not bulky because he probably weighted twice as much as I do, but he wasn't slim ether. He had these ridiculously huge torso, kind of bulky yet lanky arms, and thick chicken legs. Yes, he had bird legs. I recognized him as a jet transformer, a seeker. And a Decepticon by the way his red optics shown in the afternoon light.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here." He hissed. I fluffed out my armor and made my shoulder blasters appear on my shoulders. I charged them up, and settled into a protective stance over my patient. "A femme sparkling playing defender to a disabled fighting machine. Oh how the mighty have fallen Sideswipe…" he cracked a malicious grin, "I'll just finish my job and kill you, then have me some fun with the sparkling." Oh no, he did _not_ just say he was gonna rape me.

"Get fragged up the aft you Decepticon man-skank." I snapped at him.

Savage chuckled maliciously and powered up his wrist blasters. "Little harmless femmes like you shouldn't say such things. But I like it. It excites me."

"You twisted fragger." I heard Sideswipe hiss. My thoughts exactly.

I remember that Savage is best at long distance attacks. I carefully aimed, and as Savage growled something to Sideswipe, his attention was off me, the 'little harmless femme'. When I knew what I was going to hit, I fired loudly, once from each cannon, and both shots made it into Savage's powered up cannons. His guns imploded on themselves, and as he snarled at his ruined guns, I flung myself at the seeker. The corner of my optics caught sight of Sideswipe slipping into a forced recharge. Not good, he cant get away or try to defend himself if another Decepticon comes along.

I slammed my eight hundred pounds of armor and vicious youngling into his lard ass body with a roar. My claws sprung out and slipped into the seams of his armor. I clawed at the sensitive wirings and cables, ripping and tearing with my talon like toe claws. Energon sprayed from ruptured hoses as we stumbled a little bit out of the clearing. As we grappled and beat at each other, Savage seemed to forget how to walk, and kept slamming into tree's and other things as we struggled with balance around the edge of the clearing.

Savage's fists, huge compared to mine, beat at me. His prying fingers grabbed at my armor as he cursed in both English and Cybertronian. I heard him activating blasters to try and get me with them, thank god I was too close for his other arm mounts, and began firing off my own at short range.

My blasters weren't powerful enough to go right through him, but he felt it. I know he did, because I felt it too when the plasma dripped down and burnt my armor.

When I could, I would rip at the cables and wires of his arms, but kept my main focus on my main prize.

His hands found a hold on my door wings. Door wings, for a fact, are very sensitive, and are easily pained if crushed, hit, cut, etcetera. Savage tightened his grip on them and began to pull. I screeched at the sudden flair of pain that flooded my processor and drove my hand into a seam in his chest armor. I found his spark chamber with my claws, and began to claw at the thick metal, leaving gouges and lacerations.

His fingers brutally ripped one of the outer panels from my left wing and flung it. I made me scream instead of screech in pain and a slight panic. Who wouldn't panic at their first fight with a Decepticon when your grappling with a mech that's larger then you? My back claws ripped and tugged armor free from Savage's legs and then delved into the sensitive nerve wirings.

He snarled things I dare not repeat at me and managed to tug a piece of armor free from my back. That pissed me off, and I let out another roar, and another roar echoed mine from somewhere far away.

My claws of my free hand that wasn't attacking his spark chamber latched onto some throat cables and I began to pull. He began trying to shove me away, probably to flee, which I heard was a seeker thing. They would always flee if things got bad. With all his shoving, all he did was help my claws rip further through his cables, wire, and armor.

When Savage couldn't shove me away, he resorted to pulling harder on my wings, the joints groaning and screaming with strain and pain. My claws finally made a small hole in his spark chamber. I took that chance. After releasing my hold on his throat cables, I used that hand to pry open part of his chest coverings. It wasn't easy, it made the cables in my arms that served for muscles protest. He tried slamming them closed with I got them partially open and moved both arms to the new entrance, but they froze when I jammed my claws into the hole and pried it open.

I heard the clicking of a shoulder blaster and felt the hands fall away from my wings to grasp at my legs and pull a few bits of armor and wires off those as well, and I knew I should have just abandoned my prize to avoid the shot, but I also knew hat I wouldn't get a shot like this again. I shoved my hands into the casing and gripped the blazing hot blue spark and ripped it out as I felt the blaster go off. The hands on my legs fell loose about the same time that a burning pain rippled through the parts of me that were missing armor. I screeched and energon welled up in my optics and tore away from the still body of the Decepticon once it fell to the ground not thirty feet from Sideswipe, with Savage's spark still beating and puling angrily in my hands. I felt Optimus steal away my pain, and try to make it better. It made it numb.

I wanted to crush Savages spark, but that was Sunstreakers right to do it. So I would let him.

I heard thundering feet coming towards the clearing and moved myself as fast as I could to stand between Sideswipe and the noise. I kept my blasters hot, the spark still beating in my palm, and my claws out. I kept my burnt and numb wings rigid, and kept myself as threatening looking as I possibly could, even though I was covered in energon splatters.

Once I saw who it was, I tucked my wings back out of sight and slipped from my defensive state. I saw Ratchet barreling towards the clearing, my Papa, and adopted mother following right behind. Keeping pace with Ratchet was Sunstreaker, who had Skids and Mudflap tucked under his arms like footballs.

Sunstreaker dropped the Chevy twins to the ground and stared, along with everyone else. Even the small twins were quiet for once as they took in what they were seeing. Oh, never mind, they were unconscious, my bad. I looked around as well. The clearing was not what it was before. Trees were broken, uprooted, and there were energon pools and splatters everywhere, there was Savages body on the other side of the clearing that was gray and cooling. It was mangled, and I had residue of cables and wires under my toe claws that made it impossible to retract them. The only thing that was unchanged was Sideswipe, who looked for the entire world to be sleeping soundly in the middle of a war zone.

I turned and limped slightly towards Sunstreaker. I reached up with one hand for his hand. He lowered it. With everyone watching, I shoved Savages still beating spark into his hand and closed his fingers around it. "Its your right to crush it." I rasped. "Do it."

I looked up at him as he raised his hand up to look at what I presented him. I heard Ratchet ask something as he studied it. "Did you…?"

"Yes." I stated. "I fought him." I turned around to go back to where I had stood before.

There was a feminine gasp and then heavy footsteps as I was scooped gently up into Optimus's hands which I barely fit in completely anymore. "Nightstrider, how did this happen?" he indicated the clearing and my back. I felt the pain return as I turned to look at him, giving a small outcry when my wings and burnt wires and cables rubbed against his hand.

"Fought." I grunted. Sometimes when I was in pain my speech would return to the type of speaking I did before. I know this because when I grow sometimes it happens. "I ripped out his spark. He shot me. Hurts. Hurts lots. Lost parts of armor somewhere."

I was snatched away from Optimus and into Ratchets arms. I saw Elita's face, and the look she had was indescribable. Optimus hugged her to him, she buried her face in his side and seemed to be shaking, with one arm, as he looked over to Ratchet holding me. "Take care of her please, I need to calm Elita down… she thought we were too late…" the last part was said quietly.

Ratchet was about to take me away, when I stopped him. "Wait. Lemme see Sunstreaker." I said. He merely raised an eyebrow at me, and turned to look at Sunstreaker. He was still staring at Savages spark. "Crush it before it goes out." I called to him. "Unless you lost your nerve."

He looked up at me. I saw a fierce look in his eyes, not anger or anything, just like someone studying something that they were curious about. He raised his hand slowly and turned it palms up. The glowing spark was displayed for all for a mere moment, and then Sunstreaker crushed it in a splat of energon and light.

I nodded to him and let Ratchet tend to me as Sunstreaker went to his brother.


	23. Even

(_**So thanks to all of you who review with brain bending questions that give me new plot twists and stuff! I love it when fans of GIBTH give constructive criticism and various other things~**_

_**Right now I would like to give my very special thanks to Zayren Heart, who has been a wonderful friend in this and has helped stimulate my brain, and I hope I have stimulated hers as well~**_

_**With out further adieu, I give you the next chapter if GIBTH!**_ )

Ratchet had subspaced his tools that were here with us, and now he and I were standing, he was holding me in his hands so it was just him standing, next to Sideswipe. We needed to get out of this current clearing and back to where the humans remained. I didn't know where exactly they were, but only that they were safe. Our planes were designated to arrive in a large flat grassland area in about an hour. Two huge cargo planes were what we had to use to get from place to place, one was going to be used as a temporary medical bay for Sideswipe since he wouldn't be able to transform, and now that I think about it, probably Sunstreaker too because neither have alt modes yet. The problem we currently had was, someone needed to get to the humans in order to bring them to the plane and we needed someone to help carry the Chevy Twins and Sideswipe. I could probably walk a good portion of the way there.

Okay maybe not, but I'd give it a hell of a shot. Whatever pain I'm feeling now is nothing like dieing with bullets bouncing around inside you. But the only bot that was large enough to carry whatever humans' left was Optimus, and there was no way Elita could carry both of the Chevy twins or Sideswipe. I don't even know how many humans were left anyways, and if there were dead ones they would have to be taken back too.

Optimus, my sweet papa was trying to keep my pain numbed as much as he could, and Elita, once she called down some, had moved about and had went and found all my lost pieces of armor. They even found my door panel. They handed the pieces to Ratchet who subspaced those as well and then they moved over to the Chevy twins and Optimus scooped them up and moved to deposit them next to Sideswipe. Sunstreaker was seated next to his brother, brooding it looked like. Well, actually it looked like he wanted to rip the face off of a Decepticon and then mutilate their body. Kind of… wild and a bit feral look to him actually… probably because his brother is hurt.

"Ratchet?" I snagged his attention. Ratchets optics drifted to my face, "I can walk if you can fix my legs real fast. My back can wait."

He heaved a sigh and adjusted me in his grip. "No youngling. I couldn't stop myself from repairing everything if I started on you now."

"Then I'll walk anyways." I stated."

He narrowed his optics at me, "No you will not. We can't afford to have you get separated by anything, so one of us will carry you."

"Then how are we going to get back to the planes with out leaving anyone behind?" I asked again.

"I don't know." He answered truthfully.

I sighed. I heard a noise and turned to look at who made it. Sunstreaker gently scooped his brother into his arms. He shifted him so Sideswipe's head rested in the junction between his heck and shoulders. Sunstreaker then looked expectantly at Ratchet. "Are we going or not?" he asked gruffly. His mood seemed to be about as good as rotten apples. So not very good.

Ratchet seemed to have a snap idea. "Optimus, you go to fetch the humans, Elita, go with him and help him carry back any casualties." He caught their attention.

My foster parents nodded, though Elita was reluctant. She kept tossing looks my way, as if she wanted nothing more then to run up, steal me from Ratchet and go hide me away from the world. They headed quickly back in the direction they had come from before at a running pace.

"Sunstreaker," Ratchet beckoned the warrior forward. Sunstreaker approached smoothly, not jostling his brother at all. Ratchet gently shifted me onto Sideswipe. I was set at his waist, where extraordinarily there were no damages done to him, with my feet stretched up towards his chest. I shifted my feet, now with my claws withdrawn because Ratchet cleaned them out, to avoid patch I had made. Ratchet draped Sideswipes dangling arm up and across my upper legs, and I secured it with my hand. We couldn't afford Ratchets patches to come loose from walking.

I felt Sunstreaker stiffen against my shoulder that was touching him, so I shifted a bit away and rigid on my own. "Ratchet, I didn't say I would carry the sparkling!" he all but snarled. "If she falls then I cant stop her from hitting the ground without dropping my brother!"

"Deal with it. Nightstrider is pretty good at latching onto things when she needs too." And that was entirely true. If the ride got too bumpy for me, then I would shift and probably keep my balance by holding onto Sunstreaker's armor. Or I would tap into my inner surfer and surf the 'waves'. Yeah, and fall on my face trying. "I have to carry those two," Ratchet gestured at the Chevy twins. "So its fair that since I have to carry two, that you get to as well. Besides, you're younger then I am, you can take it."

"But-"

Ratchet snapped at Sunstreaker as he bent to gather up the smaller twins. They were tucked like footballs under his arm, like how Sunstreaker had done before. "No buts Sunstreaker. Nightstrider risked her life to save your brother, and since she's a sparkling, she wasn't even supposed to do that. She should have run, and was in every rite to just walk away and leave Sideswipe to be blasted to pieces. You owe her for your sibling's life. So deal with it." Not to my logic, but if you're smart then you don't back talk the medic.

I say that if someone on your faction's side is in danger and cant help him or her self then you should step in and defend them. I have an Autobot insignia, its small and located on the inner armor of my inner thigh. I had found it in the showers, and apparently I've had it all along.

Sunstreaker only growled in a feral tone. He shifted, and took off after Ratchet, who set off at a fast jog.

Everything was silent for a while, no words said, only a fast pace kept through the forest. When Sunstreaker landed a little hard though, my rigid stance wavered as my balance went poof with the wind and the bare burnt part of my door wings bumped against Sideswipe's legs. It sent a fresh wave of pain through my mind, and tore a muffled whine from deep within my throat.

"Loosen up." Sunstreaker grumbled quietly at me without looking at me. "Sitting like a statue isn't going to help your balance."

I took his advice and loosened myself up. It made keeping my balance easier. "For the record," I grumped. "You don't owe me anything. I did what I did because it was the right thing to do. And because I wasn't going to let him blow up my hard work."

"Not how Hatchet sees it." He was quiet for a moment. "So who are your parents, kid?"

I snorted. "My names not kid, it's Nightstrider. And I'm adopted."

"Who?" He grunted.

"Optimus and Elita." I answered.

Sunstreaker merely grunted at me in acknowledgment and continued his pace.

We traveled a bit more, probably for another fifteen minutes or so. A couple of times I had to catch myself on Sunstreaker's armor, and he growled at me. I had retaliated with a small growl of my own, though mine wasn't threatening at all. I didn't want it to be right now. I was too sore for that. Maybe later.

When we arrived at the fields, we found that the monster planes, big enough for Optimus to stand in though slightly hunched over, were already here. There were several humans outside that were prepping things for loading and stuff. It made me wonder what they were going to do with the dead bodies of the Decepticons. Ratchet comm. linked Optimus, and found out that the humans suffered only two casualties, which I hoped to what ever god out there that it wasn't Will and Epps because they played a large part in the second movie, and that Optimus and Elita-1 had an ETA of five minutes.

Ratchet took the Chevy twins into the plane that would be used for those who didn't need medical attention. The little bots had already been treated on the field, and were sedated so they wouldn't move anything and screw up the welds. My medical knowledge told me that they would be fine when we got back, up and moving around like usual.

When Ratchet came back, he took me from Sunstreaker and then walked inside the plane. He held me gently in one hand, trying not to touch my burned cables and the raw wires, and had Sunstreaker set Sideswipe on a built in medical bed and then instructed him on strapping Sideswipe in so he wouldn't bounce around during any possible turbulences. It took him a minute, and he had me dig my claws in to keep myself attached as he used both hands to tighten the straps. I was laid on my stomach on the emergency bed, seeing as all my damage was on the back of me. Ratchet didn't strap me in, because where the straps would be, they would be resting on my burnt wires and stuff.

Ratchet gave Sideswipe a small sedative to keep him in the sleep like stage he currently is in, and then walked the short distance to me. Sunstreaker settled himself at the foot of his brothers bed on the floor, so he was sitting between the bed I was on and his brothers. He ignored me for the most part, settling for staring at his brother and probably contacting him via some sort of creepy twin bond thing I had read about once back in my home world. Why do I suspect this? Well the looks on Sunstreaker's face tell me that _someone_ at least is talking to him. Ratchet knelt down and subspaced the rest of his medical equipment and my severed armor bits. He caught my eye as I shifted a bit so my head rested on the side.

He was about to say something, but the sounds of approaching footsteps halted him. Two sets of bog feet entered out plane, and then I heard a familiar deep voice speak. "The humans and their dead, a Savanna Williams and Colton Sorbet, have been loaded onto the other plane. How are they?" I closed my optics. I felt bad for those who have died, but at least it wasn't Lennox or Epps.

I felt Elita touch my arm. I opened my eyes and angled myself to look at her. She looked like she wanted to scoop me up still, and wanted to smother me and coo to me and all that stuff that mothers do to their children when they get hurt. I smiled a little smile at her.

"Sideswipe is in recharge, and looks to be fine. The welds seem to be holding from what I can see, but I expect no less from my 'part time' apprentice." Ratchet cast a glance at me. "As for Nightstrider, she hasn't improved or gotten worse. I was just about to start working on her. Do you want me to put you under for it?"

"No." I answered. "Just a mild pain killer please, I don't like not being able to remember things."

"Right." Ratchet set to preparing it.

Elita cleared her throat, or at least made a noise like it. "Will she be back together when we return to Diego Garcia?"

"Yes." Without missing a beat, Ratchet shoved the needle into an exposed cable and injected it. A cold numbing sensation drifted through my systems and began numbing pain. "She will need a few days of staying still, but after that then she can go back to light duty for a few days, and then she should be good to go."

I set my hand out and grabbed Elita's hand, or at least what fit in my hand, gave it a short squeeze before I lost feeling in that arm. "I'll be okay."

Optimus gave me a short stroke over my antenna, and sent feelings of love over the bond. I reciprocated them to both him and Elita, though my bond with her wasn't nearly as strong as mine with Optimus. Then Ratchet shoed them to their own plane.

Then he set to work, as the back of the plane closed up and I felt it start taking off. I didn't feel a thing, accept for the occasional tug and pull of wires and cables. I didn't even feel anything in my highly sensitive wings.

"Nightstrider," Ratchet mumbled to me. I angled my head to show him I was listening. "I've comm. linked Optimus and Elita this, but you should know. You're going to be in a lot of pain for the next few days." Out of the corner of my optic, I saw Sunstreaker's head fin things twitch slightly. Odd…

"Why?" I asked.

Ratchet grunted, and tugged something on my lower leg. "You're going to go through a grown spurt soon. Don't ask how I know, I'm a medic. I know things you'd be surprised about."

I snorted good-naturedly. "Well that bites a big one. I hate these random growth spurts. You know, I have medical knowledge too, and I don't know everything." I observed. I saw Sunstreaker twitch again. I would love to know what he and his brother were talking about right now.

"I'm also older then you, and have had years of practice." He said. I had nothing to say to that. So I didn't. I just lay there, feeling the tugging and occasion pinch from a wire that failed to be numbed.

The flight to Diego Garcia was actually smooth, the six hours that it took, up until the landing. Ratchet, who had taken his sweet time rewiring everything and replacing things that needed it, had just finished attaching my wing panel when the plane shook violently. It sent Ratchet toppling over, and made me bounce up and down painfully. Why weren't we warned? Sunstreaker grunted, and seemed to be holding onto the beds to keep himself in place.

There was another turbulence bout, which sent Ratchet skidding across the plane with a loud growl and a metal grating on metal sound. It sent me into the air, and I would have gone flying if it hadn't been for the hand that appeared above me and closed over me, holding me down gently.

"Now," Sunstreaker stated. "Were even."

I heard the intercom buzz over Ratchets cursing. The dreaded cheerful voice of my most hated pilot. "Pilot Skippy here, were landing in about thirty seconds. Sorry 'bout the turbulences, I for got to warn you all 'bout that. Be ready for a rough landing!" Thanks Skippy. Really, just thanks for the warning, late as it may be. Sunstreaker didn't move his hand.

"What the bloody pit does that pilot think he's doing?" Ratchet grumped.

I snorted. "That's not that bad Ratchet, you slept through the first flight we had with Skippy. It lifted Optimus's tires right off the floor." I cast him a tired grin through Sunstreaker's fingers as Ratchet started to try and get up. "Just stay there, when Skippy says there's gonna be a rough landing, he usually means it."

Not a few seconds later the plane started bumping, bouncing, and rolling along a surface. I bounced up against the hand holding me down a couple times, enticing a wince from me each time due to the fresh wounds being banged about.

When everything rolled to a stop, then Sunstreaker removed his hand and stood, along with Ratchet. "Thanks." I murmured quietly to Sunstreaker. He didn't acknowledge my words; accept for a small twitch of his head fins.

"Ladies and Gentle bots, we have landed on Isle Diego Garcia! Watch your step as you head down the ramp, we don't want to be scraping you off the pavement~" Skippy called over the intercom, whilst dropping the back ramp to the plane.

Optimus and Elita were waiting outside the plane; the humans were trooping off in the distance with wooden coffins held between them. I could see the Chevy twins goofing off farther out as I was scooped up by Ratchet and passed to Optimus.

Optimus nodded at the two remaining bots on the plane as they set to work getting Sideswipe un-strapped. Optimus turned, cradling me gently like only he could really do, and then set off with Elita following behind. He pulled us three through the showers, and once we were all clean of everything he took us three to out room. In my case, all that had to be washed off was Sideswipes energon, and Savages. And a couple of leaves and stuff that got stuck in the blood as it dried.

I was carried gently to the bed, Elita entering first, then me, then Optimus. I was laid on my stomach again and a pillow was placed under my head. Both of my adopted parents sent me feelings of love, and the fear for me they had felt when my pain had filtered through the bond.

Optimus ran a large finger over my helm softly, making me purr tiredly. "Why did you fight? I told you to run if you got in trouble."

"Would you have left a defenseless mech to get slaughtered?" I asked him back. "It wouldn't have done any good anyways. I overheard that Savage was a long-distance fighter."

I felt the bed creak a bit as Optimus shook his head. "What were you thinking Nightstrider, you could have been killed!" Elita moaned. "I couldn't have taken it if I lost you too."

"Both of you could have died too. I was thinking that an Autobot comrade was defenseless and I was the only thing that stood between him and death." I stated tiredly. "Can I go to sleep please? I'm tired and Ratchet said I'm going to start growing again… and I'm not dead, so there's no need to ponder on what could have happened."

There was a long sigh from both. Then they both got closer, enveloping me in the warmth that their sparks radiated from within their chassis's. "Of course sweetspark." Optimus rumbled.

"Rest, we'll be here when you awake." Elita agreed.

I nodded and shuttered my optics. I felt their love flow through me, and even as the pain started to set back in, I couldn't find it in myself to care. I simply relaxed between my parents and let the cool darkness of sleep take me away.


	24. Growing Pains

(_**So I don't really have much to say, only that tomorrow I'm going to a fair and am going to go listen to the band 'Johnny Limbo and the Lugnutts' and sit on the grass. I might haul myself up and ride the mechanical bull even with me being on crutches ^_^. I love riding the bull~**_

_**When I worked a fair last summer, I got free rides on the mechanical bull because I **_always_** got lots of business for them when I did. So I had fun~**_

_**Anyways, enjoy this chappie because it might be the only one for a day or so. Depends on how tired I am tomorrow.**_)

Ratchet was a little off on the timing of my growth spurt. Well, actually he never _did_ say _when_ I would have it. The last couple of times I grew, he always seemed to find it the day before I would have one. Ratchet couldn't drug me until I actually started feeling the pain, or the growth spurt would wait until I was off drugs to hit. We tried. It didn't let us cheat.

So it's been four days since we got home, and since the humans who died were buried. NEST tried to have same day burials if they could. I was on bed rest for two days; yester day was my first day of light work. Do you know what my light work consisted of? Not running papers, oh no, not running. _Walking _paperwork to where it needed to go. It was the most boring day I had ever worked on.

Today I was told I could go at a bit faster pace, for the sake of getting paperwork there faster. So I did. I took them at my usual pace, which was a fast jog. But a fast jog to me is a medium run, so not really a difference other then the title of what you're doing.

So with our newest twin arrivals; I haven't talked to ether of them since we got here, though it is kind of understandable. I don't spend copious amounts of time in the med bay, so not a lot of Sideswipe, and where Sideswipe is, Sunstreaker is usually there too. Speaking of the larger twins; Sunstreaker chose the alternate mode of a bright golden Lamborghini. Sideswipe, who is in and out of the med bay depending on when he can manage to escape, chose a cherry red color of the same model, so that throws the Corvette Stingray model concept to the wind. I wonder what else will be different from the movie? I don't know the models of the Lamborghini's they chose, a Diablo I think, and only that it was a hell of a sweet alt mode. Made me wish I had a faster one, but you know what? I would cream them in an off road race any day. The lowness of their alt modes, they were road huggers, would have them bottoming out on any and every bump. My alt mode had a good foot distance from the ground, and it would probably get larger as I got bigger, so I had the clearance to go bouncing and revving off the asphalt and into the bushes and briars.

I was currently on my hour-long break, and have about fifteen minutes left before I have to go visit Ratchet and get some paperwork from him that needs to be taken to Optimus, and am standing here towards the edge of the military truck lot talking to Will, who also happened to be on his break. He had already eaten his lunch, a turkey and cheese sandwich and a bottle of iced tea, and was currently sitting in the shade of one of the army trucks with a radio at his side.

"How was Annabelle the last time you were home?" I asked. I rotated my shoulders as a slight ache set in from not moving them so long. "Is she getting big?"

Will grinned wide and lounged against one of the trucks tires. "Annie's doing great, she's getting so big! She loves it when Ironhide when he comes back to the house with us. She calls him Hidey, and always with out a doubt gives him a smooch on his front bumper first thing when we pull in." he sighed, and pulled a dramatic face complete with arm thrown up to his forehead. "My darling daughter loves our truck more then her daddy!"

I snorted. "I doubt that. Ironhide just happens to be there before you get out of the cab." I gave a small chuckle. "Sounds like she loved you both."

"Yeah." He lowered his arm and flopped it over his stomach. "I think she would love you, Strider." Will smiled at me again.

I waved a dismissive hand and shifted my weight to my left hip when my right hip creaked. "Nah, I'm no good with kids. Too loud for my ears to take. With my luck I would end up stepping on her, and then I would feel bad." Indeed I would. Much like I would feel bad if I ran an animal over while I was out cruising.

"If an old gunslinger like Ironhide can handle kids, I bet you could too." Lennox stated. "He's a big softie at heart."

I froze and got an image in my head. With a loud startling clang, I face palmed. "Will, you just had to put that image in my head didn't you?"

"What image?" he asked.

I lowered my hand from my optics. "I can see Ironhide standing all bowlegged in an old western town, with an old cowboy hat on his head and cannons at the ready." I demonstrated what I meant; making myself bowlegged, puffing myself up, and making a gun shape out of my fingers. In my best gruff voice I stated, "This town ain't big enough for the both of us, desepticreep!"

With that stated I let my armor lay flat and took a normal stance. I looked at Will, who looked like he was having a twitch fit. Suddenly he slid the rest of the way down the car tire and collapsed in obnoxious chortles. I could faintly make out the words, "Thanks for giving _me_ that image."

I let out a barking laugh of my own. We laughed for maybe a minute and a half, and when I thought I would have to take Will to Ratchet for the color his face was turning, his laughter subsided.

"You alright now?" I asked. I shifted again as my other hip gave an uncomfortable creak.

He nodded and ran a hand through his hair. "Yup, I'm good. Now I can't wait to tell Epps what I heard from you today."

I rolled my optics and had to shift again. "Oh ha ha, sure, get your shits and giggles from my awesome miming job."

Will snorted at me. "Watch your language missy. And just so you know, mimes are silent, so you'd be fired for sure if you tried for that job."

"Sorry." I stated. "I wouldn't want to be a mime anyways. I think I would look a little weird in a tight suite and stripes." I shifted again.

Will watched me for a moment. "Do you have to go to the bathroom or something?"

"No, why do you ask?"

"Your doing a potty dance." He pointed out.

I shook my head and sighed. "I don't have to go, Will. My hips are just bothering me is all." I reallocated my weight again to prove my point.

"Growing again?" Will grunted as he shifted himself and then stood. He scooped his radio, and then planted his behind his back and he looked up at me.

I sighed and nodded. "Ratchet said I would be soon anyways." I checked my internal time. I had to go. "I gotta go Will, or I'll be-" a loud crack paused me for a second as the pain registered to my processors. "Late."

Will heard the crack and jumped. "What was that?"

I didn't have time to answer. My leg gave out and I landed on my back with a thump. Not only did it hurt my still sensitive back, but also the growing started. My optics closed, as it radiated through me, the pain, and I snapped the bond between me and my adoptive parents closed, effectively cutting off any pain they would pick up on. I couldn't move as the pain escalated. I would be moving later though.

Will was quick when he approached my helm, and he began tapping on my face softly and calling to me. I couldn't answer him. "Shit!" I heard Will exclaim. I heard him fumbling with his radio, as he turned it to one of the channels. "Ratchet? Ratchet, this is Will, respond ASAP please!"

I heard the radio crackle. "What Will? I'm a bit busy at the moment, Sideswipe cracked a weld."

"Nightstrider just collapsed, and she's not moving or responding."

"Frag! Primus slagged to pit! William, move away from her incase she convulses. She wont be able to control herself. Frag it, I'm on my way."

I heard Will move away. I let out a low pitch whine as the pain surged up into my arms.

When I grow, it's really quite gruesome. All of my armor plating, on the surface and below, cracks apart and separates how it needs to. This is the part that hurts the most, and once it reaches my chassis… well lets just say that it almost rivals dieing by bullets. When the plating is where it needs to be, then it begins to heal back together, new metals growing out from the plating and bringing it all back into one solid piece. How none of it falls off is beyond me, but when I'm like this, I don't really tend to care. This part is also the part that hurts even if you're drugged up, and usually its quick along with how ever much I grow height and weight wise.

I felt the ground bouncing as Ratchet came running and weaving through the trucks. When he neared, he let out a long curse and scooped me up. It rattled my sore limbs, and I let out a high pitch keen, the only vocalization I could make at the moment. "I know it hurts, just hold on. Will," his voice addressed Will. "I've let Elita and Optimus know. They were in the middle of a meeting with someone from your government. Please, go relieve them."

Ratchet took off before I could hear Will reply. Ratchet made record time, since the med bay wasn't too horribly far from where we were at the time. I felt them coming, the convulsions. All the convulsions did was help my armor crack faster, and cause me more pain. I tried to hold them at bay, at least until Ratchet got me on a bed or something. Doors whisked open on their own and then we were in the med bay.

I was set gently on a bed, and then I heard an outraged cry, "What the pit happened to the little thing? Did the Decepticons attack?" I'm guessing Ratchet hadn't said a word when he suddenly stormed out of the med bay then…

I heard Ratchet messing with things hurriedly and felt my arm begin to spasm. "Slag it! No, no Decepticons. Frag! Where the pit is that vial!"

I keened loudly again as my other hip armor cracked and began to split. I felt my body begin to convulse due to the fact I couldn't hold them back any more. I heard the sharp clicking and chirping of Cybertronian language and then it switched to English.

"What the slag is happening to her?" I heard someone ask loudly. I'm assuming that it was Sideswipe…

"Found it!" Ratchet crowed.

I heard Sunstreaker ask something to the med mech over my keening. "Is she… what were you guys talking about on the plane… Growing?"

"Yes…" Ratchet hissed. My optics popped open and I saw him going to hold down my arm to inject the drugs into my system. My body began to thrash harder. It's like a robotic seizure, if you want to compare it to something. "Slag it, Sunstreaker, hold don her arm so I can get the needle in!" Gurnbling. "Get over here now Sunstreaker, or I'll kick you out of my med bay until your brother is released and cover you in paint thinner!"

I heard feet moving reluctantly over to the bed, and then Sunstreaker entered my field of vision. His yellow paint glowed in the low lights, and made his face even creepier due to the fact that he looked like he wanted to murder someone. His arms held down my arm. He didn't flinch when my armor crunched and broke under the added pressure of his hands, though he did blink when he got to feel my growing and madly pulsing cables between the breaks in my armor.

I saw Sideswipe enter my vision as well, his face gazing curiously down at me. Ratchet clicked something to him, and Sideswipe clicked back. I keened again, louder this time, as my limbs and body began to lengthen rapidly.

I felt the needle enter my arm and empty itself as my claws sprung out of their own accord. All the armor on my limbs was cracked and already spacing it's self out, and I could feel the pressure building in my chassis. It pressured my spark, and my organs. It hurt. Oh it hurt. My back arched up, my spark pulsating rapidly, and my keen evolved into a scream as my parents came hurrying through the automatic door. I felt Optimus wrench open the bond I had closed, and he began filtering some of my pain and started sending me feelings of love and strength to hold on until it passed.

My claws dug into the bed, my chassis extended upwards in an arch, and it began to crack. Slowly, so slowly. My scream had made my own audios ring, and I could see the twins covering the spots where their ears would be.

With a large grating crack, my chassis armor shattered and began to spread. I dropped back onto the bed, my scream cutting off as I felt my wings and back plating shatter and spread as well.

I drew my claws back in as Optimus and Elita came to my sides and ran their hands and or fingers in Optimus's case softly over my helm, the only thing that doesn't grow painfully. It just expands, since it's already multiple plattings, and then they grow together again.

The raging pain dulled down to a bearable ache. I keened again, this time quietly. Ratchet stuck me with another needle and a cooling sensation rushed through my cables.

"I'm going to put her under this time, so we don't have any repeats of last time." Ah, he's mentioning my little freak out over his high and mighty 'lemony squid-ness'. "She's growing more rapidly now, that's why she was in so much pain." Ah, makes sense. I didn't remember any of my other growth spurts hurting this badly. I felt my optics growing heavy, as the pain dulled down into numbness. "Nightstrider will be in stasis for a while, a couple days at least."

I felt my optics close, and then Elita pressed a soft kiss to my helm. "We'll put her in a more comfortable berth first. We'll be here when you wake, sweetling."

I felt the bed I was laying on rumble with Optimus's voice. "That we will, my sweetspark. Now rest, your body needs it."

"Papers…" I found my voice and rasped.

"Sunstreaker can do it. It gets him out of my bay, and off his aft." Ratchet quipped. I heard protesting, but the drugs, oh the sweet, sweet drugs, took hold and dragged me down into the dark painless abyss that is stasis.


	25. Road Rage

(_**So how ya'll doing? I'm doing well. My bruise is now bigger then my hand, and still growing… it grows when I sleep… Sorry that I took so long in getting the chapter out, been busy and the cat trying to help me type doesn't help any.**_

_**But off of the subject of my leg and my apologies. Things may or may not take an interesting turn~ it all depends on how the chapters play out.**_

_**So leave a review~ I get fewer and fewer of them lately. Makes me wonder if I lost some fans or not. So if you find the story turning to your dislike, please inform me and I'll see if I can curve it away.**_

_**Just so you know, some facts to ROTF are going to be different due to the fact that I don't own the movie and cant watch it on the computer in order for me to correct them. And we don't have any movie stores near here… so anyways, there may be a few things off, but all together it should be relatively close.**_)

So it's been two months since my growth spurt, and most of the guys are in Shanghai. I haven't grown much since, maybe an inch or so, and now I stand at ten foot even and weigh nine hundred pounds. My awakening three days after going under, after pretty much being in a robot coma and pumped full of 'helpful' drugs, was strange. I was out of it, and I actually felt really high. Sideswipe was still there at the time, and Sunstreaker had been admitted for pissing off Ironhide. Sideswipe at the time I awoke had been leaning over me, studying me he had claimed, and had been talking to Ratchet. My out of it mind had taken the sight in as something scary, and I had screeched. Startled Sideswipe so much that he had squeaked and fell on his ass to get away from the noise. And then I had started laughing.

Yeah, Ratchets doctor drugs are the shit, really they are. Makes your mind weird though. Ratchet had given me an anti drug thing, and it took an hour for it to kick in. during that hour, I had given them hell. Sunstreaker was the 'Evil Mitten' to my drugged mind, and Sideswipe, the poor mech, had become the 'Screaming Cherry Bomb'. When I came out of it, my rational mind was like 'what the hell' and there was a silent agreement between the four of us that this would never leave the med bay.

Lots of things have been going on in the two months that have passed. I've been hitting the weight room, frequently when I'm not working, and have been working on my closer hand-to-hand combat there. I've shredded several Autobot versions of punching bags, which I had to help replace and had thought of a funny idea and had drawn a crappy and random picture of a Decepticon on there. I did it for everyone of the bags. Seemed to spur everyone on, and they liked to go and beat the shit out of the newly dubbed 'Deceptibag'. I called it Mo though, because even punching bags need names. I even put a little nametag on it.

I had spent a little time with Sideswipe. Enough to call him more then an acquaintance, but not enough to call him a friend. He's more or less my daily annoyance. Sideswipe will pop out of the most random of places and often scare the living shit out of me. He usually drags his brother along when he visits too. Drives me bloody bonkers… and Sideswipe knows it. I think…

Decepticon activity has skyrocketed. Sideswipe, who had been released a month prior, was there, along with my father, the motorcycle trio, the ice-cream twins, and Ironhide. Ratchet, Sunstreaker who happened to be in the foulest mood I had seen yet, Jolt, and I were still here at base. I was in charge of arranging the ice-cream twin's new alt forms because the bloody fraggers went and pissed off Sideswipe. He and his brother practically rewired the damn little twins, I helped a bit, and they got stuck in the form of a conjoined ice-cream truck. Ratchet and Jolt were prepping the med bay incase someone got hurt, and I hope they didn't. Sunstreaker was out, probably terrorizing some of the soldiers here. I really don't know; I don't really spend a whole lot of time with him. He's an ass.

But… there's something more to him. It's primal, wild, and untamed, a bit savage if you really want to go into detail. It gives me the sense that he would probably rip me in half if I pissed him off enough, or if I was a Decepticon. Sideswipe has the same thing, but it's more hidden then Sunstreaker. Sideswipe is way more docile then Sunstreaker, that much I can tell you… though both of them like a good prank.

I rolled both alt modes inside the main hanger one at a time, because while I am indeed now an auto-monotonous organism I am still small and pushing two cars is kind of hard. When the green and rusty orange colored Chevy's were rolled behind two screens, I stepped back and stretched.

I took a look at my paint and noticed that I would have to be repainted soon. I get repainted about every three or so months, sometimes four. Depends on how bad my paint job gets scuffed, and right now I had a few bare spots from where I always seem to scrape myself against something or other. Usualy I paint what ever of myself I can, and then I have Elita help me with my back and wings. My flame over paint is kind of crappy, since neither Elita, Optimus, nor I are good artists. How my father keeps his flames nice and neat I will never ever know. I'll have to repaint it after these couple of weeks are over, since this Shanghai incident has let me know that the second movie is drawing near.

Honestly, I don't remember all the in-depth details of what happens in this movie since it _has_ been two years since I watched it, and I don't know how to hack into my memory files. I do know, though, that it was going to hurt me a lot when Optimus dies due to our bond. It's going to hurt Elita too. Even knowing that Sam brings Optimus back with the Matrix… it still makes my spark hurt.

I sighed and moved towards the med bay. I want to go for a drive, since the scenery on the island is actually really nice. Diego Garcia is actually a whole lot bigger then it seems. It has several miles stretched out onto ether side, small little roads that trail everywhere, hills, vegetation, wild life like rabbits and coyotes, and plenty of ditches, drop offs, and pot holes to make offroading fun and difficult for lower vehicles. To top it off, on the side furthest from the base is a gorgeous little cove. In that cove is a small beach, maybe twenty feet of sand when the tide is low, ten when the tide's not, and what would appear to be a small cave.

I had been inside it, and it wasn't small at all. The entrance, sure it was small, and Optimus would have to be in truck form to get inside, but further in, it opened up into this stunning cave filled with sea salt stalagmites. It stretched a good fifty, maybe sixty feet up, and the ceiling itself was covered in this strange glowing moss. I hadn't explored the whole thing, because this place was huge, but I had been a fair ways inside.

No one other then myself knows that when I drive, I usually pull various stunts to improve my driving, and possibly give me an edge in battle should I ever drive into one. I also do jumps and other reckless things, because they are a hell of a lot of fun. I managed to be able to make myself flip over something in car mode with out hitting it. But it actually depends on how tall, wide, and long it is…

I walked through the med bay doors and propped my hands on my hips, "Okay Ratchet, mini twins new alt modes have been delivered. I was going to go offroading for a bit if you don't mind?"

Ratchet was bent over this little thing working on it, I couldn't even see what it was, and Jolt was filing some records away. Ratchet nodded to me and answered. "Good, good. Yes you may go, but be careful. We don't need you back in here again so soon after leaving."

"Two months isn't soon Ratchet, and it's been a while since I've needed serious medical treatment." I countered and turned back and went back through the door. "Comm. link me if you need me." I could receive messages, but I couldn't send them back. Well, I could, but I would always get a headache from doing it too much so I just choose to do it rarely.

"Gotcha." He answered as the door closed. Ratchet seemed to have taken a liking for human phrases, as much as it annoyed him when we used them on him, and seemed to use them whenever he deemed fit. Like right now.

I shook my head and continued outside. When I was outside, strangely there was no Sunstreaker in sight; I folded down into my Alt mode. I still wasn't large, but I wasn't small ether. I could fit someone inside me now, well two people actually but they would be a little close together, but I still didn't carry anyone around. I can still drive off road whenever I want. Its loads of fun and if your careful not to run them over you can go scare a gathering of bunnies and watch them scatter.

I revved my engine, and then headed down one of the roads that lead off base. Turning left, I went down another one, and then turned right again. When I got far enough away, I flipped on my radio and set my own personal play list to blare from my speakers, and then I turned my wheels and slipped off the road.

From there, that's where the fun begins. I revved my engine, and then sped up. My shocks took most of the bounce from bumped and potholes, but it still sent my frame rocking on its wheels. I revved up and over a dune, sending me into the air for a short bit. I gave a whoop of joy, and then crashed back down again.

I drove for a while, scaring rabbits and tormenting coyotes and jumping sand dunes. I was going to try and jump these two dirt dunes, and in-between the two was a road. I had jumped it once before, and only once. Any other times I tried I ended up nose-diving into the opposite dune. There are car prints from my front bumper in the sides of the dirt jumps.

I shifted myself into four-wheel drive, different from my usual just driving with my front wheels, about half a mile from the jump. The sudden traction of all four wheels jarred my body and made my front wheels pop up for the briefest moment, and then I shot forward as fast as my non aerodynamic body would allow.

When I went up the dune and into the air, I had to raise my wheels up as far as I could. Why did I have to do that? Because a certain yellow Diablo was speeding down the road and the dunes aren't that high up, maybe eight feet or so, and I really didn't want to risk my life by scratching Sunstreaker's paint.

So when I was in the air, several things happened. I think I startled Sunstreaker, because as he passed under me, he looked like he locked his breaks and he seemed to fishtail around to see who I was. I landed oddly on the opposite side, like I usually end up doing, with my front wheels on the top of the dune, and my back tires spinning to get a hold on the loose sandy dirt that makes up the embankment. I ether land like this, which I don't count as actually jumping the dunes, or I nose dive as I had mentioned earlier. I revved my engine and started pulling myself up. My back tires span a couple of times, and ended up spraying dirt because I don't have tire flaps to keep things from getting tossed into the air.

There was a revving down on the road, and I turned myself around and edged to the edge. Sunstreaker was sitting down there, revving up at me. I felt him trying to establish a comm. link with me, and accepted it. You never know what he has to say. I turned off my radio so I could hear him.

'_What the frag are you doing, femme?'_ Sunstreaker questioned me.

I let my engine rumble in annoyance. He was interrupting my drive. Or maybe I was interrupting his… were interrupting each other then. '_My name isn't femme; it's Nightstrider, so I suggest you learn it and use it. I was off road racing and dune jumping for your information.'_

'_Well then _Nightstrider_, watch where you're driving, you almost got me with your tires._' He snarked.

See? I told you he's an ass. A pompous ass. '_Good thing you're a low riding car then, isn't it? If you were any higher and could actually off road drive then we would have a problem cause I would have hit you._'

'_What do you mean by if I could actually off road drive?_' he rumbled. Sunstreaker can't get me up here, because he wont get himself dirty. Robot version of a city slicker.

'_Exactly that. You're a road hugger, not only would you bottom out when you hit a bump, but knowing you, you wouldn't want to run the risk of ruining your paint job._' I stated.

'_I'll show you road hugger._' Sunstreaker roared his engine. I roared mine back, slammed the link closed and then turned to go. There was no way he could get up that embankment unless he transformed. I was about sixty feet from the edge when I saw through my mirrors parts of the embankment explode. My first thought was 'damn, there goes my jumping spot' second was 'oh shit' before I gunned it with a certain pissed Lamborghini Diablo tearing out of the dust cloud. I really should learn to keep my big mouth shut…

I shifted back to my four wheel drive, having went back to two wheel drive when I was talking to Sunstreaker, and tore off towards the bumpiest place I knew on the island, and that happened to be second farthest from the base.

Sunstreaker chased me for a bit, seemingly loving the fact he could do it and I couldn't get away like a twisted game of cat and mouse. I knew this for a fact that his Lambo form could easily run me down in my GMC Jimmy form. But it may have also had to do with the fact that we were in a heavily pothole filled and bumpy place.

When I managed to somehow get some distance between us, I turned myself around and raced towards him for what could have been a head on collision. When I was close, I turned sharply on my side, transformed partially so I could shove my hands onto the ground and pushed myself into the air. I flipped over Sunstreaker, rolled a bit, and then came to my wheels and was racing away as said sunflower was turning around.

'_They're back_.' Ratchet comm. linked to me. I didn't reply.

I would get someone there to keep this crazy mech off of my ass. So I sped up to my max speed, and then tried to keep it there. As slightly terrified of what Sunstreaker may have planned, I found this to be exhilarating. My spark was racing, my cooling fans were working double time to cool me down in the Diego Garcia sunlight, and I could see steam rising out from underneath my hood. I was never good with racing stamina, but that was something I'd work on later.

As I sped into the base parking lot, Sunstreaker not far behind me, I slowed down just slightly so I could transform. When my change was done on the fly, I kept going at a running pace. I leapt over humans, and those who were smart leapt out of my way, and as I came across Ironhide, I dived between his legs and kept going. If I could have stopped to see Ironhide's face, I would have, because I'm sure I would have busted a gut. I could hear Sunstreaker now, he was transforming on the fly too.

Optimus, where are you? I was gonna have my papa save me, but then I remembered at this time in the movie he had been talking with Galloway. I haven't met the guy, but I didn't like him in the movie. Shit, how the hell am I supposed to lose Sunstreaker now?

My saving grace came in the form of a certain yellow Diablo's red Diablo brother. "Hi Nightstrider!" Sideswipe waved at me as I neared him. "What's the rush? You look like a Decepticon asked you to be his sparkmate."

I slowed myself down and slipped around Sideswipe so I could hide as much as I could. "Your brother," I huffed and sucked in more air to cool my steaming self down, "is trying to kill me."

Sideswipe grinned over his shoulder at me and waited for his brother to turn the corner. "And you want me to save you." It wasn't a question.

"Only if you got the time." I responded.

Sideswipe gave me what I'm sure was supposed to be his most charming smirk, and then responded with, "For you, Princess, I always have time to save you from the evils of the giant sunflower."

I snorted at him. "Well then, Prince charming, do your duty and keep him from murdering me while I escape." Sometimes this is what our banter turned too.

And I turned myself and snuck away as Sideswipe gave a playful bark of laughter and tackled his brother as Sunstreaker turned the corner.


	26. Predatory Comfort

(_**Okay, I don't think this chapter is as good as some of the ones I've done, but it sets things into motion for ROTF and it was a bugger to write... And it may have some fluff in it~ just to let you all know, I will be skipping a lot, so we can get through this torturous stage and to where relationships and other things can start evolving~ I dunno if I'm gonna bring this story into T:DOTM, because that movie greatly saddened me by all the deaths of certain Cybertronian warriors and stuff.**_

_**And yes, I am aware that both of them are slightly ooc, but I couldn't write it any other way… it just didn't work… yeah… I tried, it didn't work well, and ended up with Strider being waaaaaay ooc… still not happy with this chappy… grr…**_

I would like to thank everyone who reads and reviews on GIBTH. I am going to tell you now, that if all goes to plan, this story is going to be long. Very long. And depending on how things develop, there may or may not be a sequel.

_**Enjoy~**_)

So it's been about five days, things have started happening, lots of things. The suspected last shard of the Allspark was stolen, Megatron has been brought back and oodles of other things. Now we're all located in some town that has Sam's college. And by all, I mean Optimus, me because I wanted to say hi to Sam, the Lamborghini twins, the Chevy twins, the motorcycle trio, and Ironhide. Bumblebee was here too, because Sam had him with him. Optimus, true to the movie, had something he needed to talk to Sam about, and apparently Sam didn't listen. He ended up getting himself kidnapped by the Decepticons. So now I'm sitting here, with my bodyguards, you guessed it, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, hiding in some forest while everyone else is out fighting to try and save Sam.

I was curled against a tree, with the twins on ether side of me. I looked to just be brooding, but honestly I was preparing myself for the pain I would feel through Optimus and mines bond. I was sure he would try and block the bond, but when he died, I… I have the feeling that everything he was feeling up until he died will come rushing through the severed bond… And I wouldn't have anyone to share it with. Elita and I aren't on speaking terms right now; we had an argument because she didn't want me to come incase something went wrong and I wanted to say hi to my human friend. Among other things… but nonetheless, my bond with her is currently closed, by my own force of will. I feel nothing from her, and she feels nothing from me. I can hold a grudge, and until we sit down and talk things out, which wont be for a while I'm guessing, I'll be on my own.

I bump on my shoulder had me tilting sideways, and I steadied myself on Sunstreaker's arm. Turning my head, I glanced at Sideswipe. "Yes?" I asked him.

"What's the human phrase… a penny for your thoughts, Princess?" Ah, yes. Sideswipe had come to the annoying conclusion that he could call me princess, my new nickname for him, because he thought it was funny, and because I was the daughter of Optimus, who happened to be the leader of the Autobots.

"There's nothing on my mind Sideswipe." I answered.

"I call bullshit." Sunstreaker stated. Ah yes, I had taught both pairs of twins the game of BS. Lots of fun, we bet on dares. I have an awesome poker face, but Sunstreaker takes the cake. He bluffs and lies straight faced. According to the twins, my antennas twitch when I lie. More then once did I have to do a dare. I had to climb Ironhide once, like a mountain climber. That was back, oh, about a week after Sideswipe had been released. That was also our first game. Ironhide hadn't been amused. Sunstreaker, and ass he may be, is the best poker buddy I have. Will sucks ass at poker, he doesn't have the face for it. "There is no way that any bot can look that down in the pits if nothing is on their processor. Well, unless Megatron gives you a lap dance of course. Then you're free to look however you want."

My hands came up to cup over my optics at the image that formed in my mind. "Thanks for the image Sunstreaker. I really needed that to screw with my mind." I sighed and scrubbed my hands down my optics and settled them in my lap. "I just have a bad feeling is all… like something bad is going to happen soon."

Sideswipe just shook his head. "Everythings gonna be fine, Princess, you'll see. Boss bot will kick Decepticon aft and get the human back, you'll see."

That's not what was bothering me, it's the fact he dies while doing it… "I know." I sighed again. "But there's still something bothering me about it. I don't know what it is.

I heard Sunstreaker huff, and the next second I found him running a hand over my helm. "You worry too much. Sideswipe said Optimus Prime will get the human back." I had to hold back a rumbling purr as his fingers touched my antenna.

"If Sideswipe said that you would be stronger if you jumped off a bridge, would you do it?" I asked dryly.

It was quiet for a moment, and then it wasn't. "No." Sunstreaker stated in an equally dry tone. I'm guessing he googled my reference. "I'm not that stupid."

I simply shook my head and then stood. I walked a few paces away, with both their eyes on me, and then I stretched. My joints creaked happily, and then un-stiffened. I fluttered my door wings for a moment, and then returned to my seat.

It was a few minutes later, maybe ten, when I felt Optimus and my bond close off, though it didn't disappear. I frowned as my spark twanged unhappily at the fact it was being blocked out, and my antenna flattened to my head.

"What is it now, femme?" Sunstreaker asked in his usual snarkish tone. I hated it when he called me femme. He never uses my name, and I'm always reminding him, the dumb fragger.

"Optimus just shut down the bond." I stated. "It is… uncomfortable."

Sideswipe decided to reason with me. "He's probably kicking Decepticon aft like I said, and doesn't want you to feel what he's feeling."

I merely shook my head and stood again, and then paced back to that once spot. I knew what was going to happen soon. The only father I have ever known was going to die, and there was nothing I could do about it. I looked to the clouds, stretched again, and then turned around to go back to the guys with a sigh.

Only I never made it there. The bond I had, though closed, had still been there a moment ago. Now it wasn't. It had snapped, like an over stretched rubber band. I froze as the overwhelming bleakness was there. I was alone… all alone…

"Princess?" I saw Sideswipe stare at me, and then stand. He was mirrored by Sunstreaker. "Nightstrider?"

"Femme, what has crawled up your aft _now_?" Sunstreaker drawled, though he seemed to scan the area.

Then it hit me. Everything that had been flowing through Optimus in the last few minutes flowed into me, and I'm sure into Elita too. Pain. So much pain. Fear. For the humans, and the Autobots. Sadness. For the loss of sparks he had to extinguish, and leaving us. Love, for Elita and I. My hands came up and clutched at my spark, pulsating with loss, and I curled into myself. I felt his pain as he was stabbed, I felt the damn blade as if it was sliding slowly through my own chests plates, and blasted through the spark as my own. I felt all the bumps and abrasions he had before he died as my own too. I felt it all…

Optimus's last thoughts that happened last second to his death floated across my mind. "_I failed. I left them alone. I left Sam. I love you, my spark mate. My daughter. I am sorry…_"

My frame shuddered, my optics closed, and my knees hit the ground. I felt two sets of hand on my shoulders not a second later.

"Femme? Femme? Slag it, Nightstrider? What the frag is wrong?" Sunstreaker sounded from my left.

"I've comm. linked Ratchet." Sideswipe stated from my right.

Energon tears welled up in my optics, but didn't fall. I hadn't cried in so long… I cant remember when… I gave a shaky sob and then rasped quietly. "He's gone…"

"Who's gone?" Sideswipe asked.

I curled tighter into myself. "Optimus!" I cried out. "He's gone! My Papa's gone!" my intakes hitched.

"Ratchet says that she's suffering from a broken bond. She's telling the truth… Prime's spark has been extinguished protecting the human Samuel Witwicky." Sideswipe monotoned. I let out a whine, and felt Sideswipes hand, I think it was his, run over my helm. "He says there's nothing we can do for her. He says she needs physical contact. Something to let her know she isn't alone." But I am. So alone, all alone…

"But she'll ruin my paint!" Sunstreaker protested. Then he swore colorfully at the news of my fathers' death.

I felt Sideswipe gather me up in his arms and lift me. He held me close to his chassis. I could feel his spark beating beneath his armor, and could hear his engine roaring at the news he received. A spark that wasn't gone like Optimus's, even though Optimus would be brought back soon by the very boy he saved. I felt him take a seat again, I'm guessing back at the tree we had been at before. "Then don't." he rumbled. "Don't help her. Don't think of when we lost our creators, and how we had other bots there that helped us through it. And don't think about how much _pain_ she's in right now." He growled.

There was a frustrated growl that came from Sunstreaker, before I heard him stomp over and flop down next to his brother. I was snatched half off of Sideswipe so I was sitting partially on Sunstreaker. They draped their arms around me loosely.

Both brothers were silent; accept for the rumbling roar of their engines. It didn't help, me sitting here with them. It was about as touching as sitting with two metal statues. I started shaking.

I could feel Elita probing at our bond, demanding to be let in. I was just about to, when I felt a sudden thought invade my mind. Where was Elita-1 when Optimus was fighting? Why wasn't she there by his side, helping him fend off the Decepticons? Where were the other Autobots that went with him? I violently denied her access, and planted a brick wall around the bond. It wasn't opening any time soon… not with the new void that was flayed open like a raw wound.

"Uncurl please, Princess." Sideswipe murmured quietly to me and stroked a hand down my helm. "Let us be here for you." I uncurled slightly, my body reacting to the helm stroking.

"Come on femme, keep going." Sunstreaker shifted a bit. "Sideswipe, what do we do if she starts leaking from her optics? I don't do well with leaking femmes…"

I stiffened a bit, but another stroke to my helm had me unrolling a bit more from my quivering ball of pain. "The term is crying, Sunstreaker. And if she starts crying, we let her. Its better to cry then to bottle it up."

There was a soft sigh as I uncurled completely, slumping like a doll with my hands curled to my chest. I was pulled up and held by both sets of arms to their touching shoulders in a three-way hug. Surprisingly gentle hands ran over my helm and door wings as my shuddering increased.

"Then go a head and cry, we'll be here for you femme." At Sunstreaker saying that I could cry, and onto his shoulder no less, I felt my optics well up and I opened them. I heard both of them let their engines rev in a primal rhythm, wild and untamed like both of the bots themselves. A predatory comfort…

I began to cry, letting the void in my spark fuel most of it, the rest was everything else that I hadn't cried over since the last time I had cried. Energon tears dripped down my faceplates and pattered on the twins' armor, leaving little blue streaks down the red and yellow surfaces. I closed my eyes, used my hands and toe claws to gently but firmly attach myself to their armor, and then let myself sob harder.


	27. Parachute

(_**Been tired so I'm sorry this chapter might be crappy and uber mega short. Ugh, this is such a hard part to get through, but once we get through this part of the movie, then I can start on relationships and stuff.**_

_**Writing these parts of ROTF seems to drain my energy… it's an energy vampire…**_

_**Favorites, alerts, and reviews are loved and welcomed. I also love it if there are suggestions on something you want to happen, because I try and incorporate them if I can.**_)

Somehow, I don't know how, I ended up with Sam, Mikaela, Leo, the little twins, and Bumblebee. I don't know how, but I did. We had to leave the area due to something or other that I hadn't paid attention too, and we ended up meeting up with everyone. The twins were called away to help get rid of any remaining Decepticons, and I was told to get out of the area, so I just kind of… followed Bumblebee when he left the area with the humans and the Chevy twins. When we stopped for the night at this little run down mill like place, I ended up having Mikaela sleeping in the back of my alt mode because Leo was creeping her out. I didn't recharge well and was awake for several hours of the night, so I kept it a comfortable temperature for her in my alt mode, and kept my doors locked so no peepers could get to her. When we went to go get Simmons, I was used for holding some things, his tasers and stuff though that all was moved to Skids's trunk when the humans had to make a pit stop.

I was quiet for once through out it all; I stayed in my car mode most of the time, up until we had to go to the museum to get Jetfire. You know that Wheelie is really annoying? Yeah, he is. I got stuck with him in my alt mode on the way there because no one wanted to listen to him.

Honestly, I felt dead inside. Heck, if I let my spark do it, it probably would have just faded to nothingness. I felt like I had lost everything I had, which in a way I had. I wasn't as close to Elita as I was Optimus, and even if we weren't fighting, I wasn't likely to go to her for comfort. She would smother me… I hurt in my spark, and I guess you could say that losing the only father I had ever known really kind of broke my spark… If it weren't for the fact I knew Optimus would come back, I would probably have rolled over and just let my spark go out.

So here we sat, in the empty parking lot of the museum where Jetfire was located. We had been sitting here for a bit, and I was getting kind of bored. I knew that the side of the building would erupt soon; I just had to be patient. It was a few more minutes, and then there was a rumble. That was my queue. I turned my engine on, revered myself, and then drove over the curb and onto some grass to head behind the building that now sported a large hole in it. I heard the others following behind me not a moment later.

I transformed when I was out of sight of the road, the others followed my example, and rounded the corner in time to see the huge old bot fall on his aft as he farted out a parachute. The twins cackled and started cracking jokes as Bumblebee brushed passed me to continue forward.

I sighed and approached the twins. When I got close enough to do it, I reached up the short distance that they were taller then me, grasped their helms, and then put enough force behind my arms to crack their heads together. "Be quiet you too, respect your elders because they can still kick your ass." With that said and done, I took a couple steps back.

"Ow! Lil' mama, whatcha gotta go 'an do dat fur?" Skids complained and patted his helm gently. "Chu den'ned my helm, yo, dat ain't coo."

Mudflap whined a moment. I sighed and turned to walk back to the two older bots and the humans. "Why chu gotta go an make mah gorgeous lookths ruined like Skidz'z ugleh mug, huh lil mama?" I turned and narrowed my optics at him.

"Yo! We'z twins man, we's look tha same!" Skids grunted.

They went on and bickered a bit, and I watched with amusement. Then I lost interest and turned to stroll over to the other bots and humans. It took the two goofballs a moment before they realized they were alone, and then they scrambled to catch up. I came onto their little group, just as Jetfire stood up and tapped his cane on the ground.

"Hold onto your knickers, this is gonna be a bumpy ride!" Jetfire declared.

Oh shit. Space bridge. Frag.

There was a blinding flash that hurt my optics' and then we were falling. I could hear the humans screaming, and then we hit the sands of Egypt with a thump and rolled down a sand dune. I landed on a belly flop, and felt something larger then me land on my back and squish my door wings. Who the hell…? A green hand fell into my sight.

"Skids…" I hissed and shifted myself so my hands could press into the sand.

"Whazat?" he answered.

"Get your lard aft off of me before I call Bumblebee." I don't know what Bumblebee would do, but I figured I might as well make the threat.

The weight that had me pressed into the sand rolled itself off. "Sure thang 'lil mama."

When I could shove myself up, I hissed, "Thanks…" before I stood. I shook sand out of my gears and armor, and then stalked up to the top of the dune we had tumbled down.

"… The hell was that? Where the hell are we?" I heard Sam yelling at the old bot. I followed the noise.

"At least were still on the same planet!" Jetfire barked. As he came into view, he showed himself to be seated on a pile of rocks. "Egypt! That's where we are!"

"Why are we here?" Mikaela questioned.

Jetfire sputtered a bit and then seemed to clear his throat. "You are after the Matrix of Leadership! Go to the daggers point, when the three kings align, and you shall find the path that you seek!"

I sighed and tapped my fingers on my arms and then folded down into my alt mode to wait for the signal to go.

"Go! My mission is now yours! Go before the Decepticons find me, and there for you as well."

I gave a rev of my engine, and then waited for everyone to get ready. Then we set off towards our destination.


	28. War Zone

(_**Hopefully this chapter will be much more to my satisfactory. As I had stated before, I had so much trouble with this part, but it should get better! I have one hell of a plot twist planned.**_

_**Lets just say that in my thoughts, all the Autobots that died should be able to be revived by the matrix of leadership since it brought back Optimus… something you least expect will happen, that's for sure…**_

I cant tell you any more, because then that would be cheating and giving spoilers ^v^.

_**Thank you everyone; all my reviewers, even the ones who insist I need a Beta, and all my favorites and alert subscribers. You have no idea what it means to me to have almost one hundred and fifty reviews. I am deeply honored, and honestly humbled by you all.**_

_**Well, lets get on with the show~**_)

So we're here where Sam is supposed to find the Matrix of Leadership. It was interesting how we got here; lets just say that having the ability to tint my windows darker helps a lot in the case of humans. So we traveled through this border place with the angry midget. It comes in handy to be able to project little holograms, because I put the hologram of the words 'Go Yankees!' on the back of my window. It got some happy hoots from the little man as he let us through, with me bringing up the tail end of our screwed up train.

We also went to this once place where the humans looked at the stars to see where we had to go. There was this creepy little scorpion that kept trying to climb into my gears, and I would move away. The damn thing followed me, everywhere I went. The other bots laughed at me. Even Bumblebee chuckled at me. Finally I just turned around and ran the damn thing over. I didn't kill it, I put it narrowly next to my tire, but it did make it leave. Only to go bother Skids.

We were also supposed to meet Lennox's team in some town that if forgot the name of. It was going to have Optimus's body in it, as I was informed. I had been in a bit of a mood after that, and the twins left me alone.

Currently, I was sitting in my robot, out of the way so I didn't get smacked with the twins when Bumblebee decided to throw their asses out into the sand. I was lying on my stomach, with my door wings tilted so I could absorb a bit of sunlight into them. It warmed my circuitry pleasantly, and my cooling fans kept my temperature in check. In the middle of my hands I had a little lizard that was scrambling between the two of my hands. It would run one way, I block it, and it would turn to run the other way, and I would block it there too. It was most amusing, and I wasn't planning on hurting it.

I let the poor thing go a couple seconds later, and let out a sigh as I folded my arms under me and rested my head on one hand while the other was splayed out in the sand. Inside the little building thing was getting loud, which lead me to believe that it wouldn't be very long until Sam would discover the Matrix as a pile of dust.

The twins landed with disgruntled noises outside the building. With amusement in my tune, I called out, "Get in trouble with Bumblebee again?"

Mudflap, who happened to be face down in the sand with his brother on top of him, lifted a hand in my general direction and flipped me off.

"Hey!" I barked. "That's my motion thank you very much, and I don't do older bots." I snorted.

"We's not old!" Skids complained. Mudflap mumbled the same thing, I think, but I couldn't really hear him due to the sand.

I let out a bark of humorless laughter. "Your both older then me! There for your both older bots!" This time Skids held up his middle finger and then untangled himself from his brother. "Oi! What have I said about that being my motion and I wont do ether of you because you're old!"

Mudflap sat himself up and dusted himself off. "Frag it lil' mama, we's not old! We's still like dem human teenagers!"

I couldn't help it. I snorted. Human male teenagers are usually horny, and always have their minds in the gutter. They seemed to realize why I had snorted, because Skids exclaimed unhappily. "Not like tha Lil' Mama! We's not 'horny' all da time, 'less we's inerfacin' wit a purty femme of course!"

"Of course your not." I stated amused. I sighed and then dropped my head back down in my hand and looked at my other hand. The little lizard from before was there, sitting on the warmer part of my armor. I smiled slightly as it sunned itself comfortably on the rocks. I felt my tanks grumble with the want for energon, but my energy levels were reading that they were fine currently so I didn't bother with it. I didn't have any energon with me anyways, so it wouldn't matter. I would have to wait until we found Ratchet again or until we got back to base. I had gotten better at managing hunger, and I have a couple small reserve tanks of energon that my body can run on.

Suddenly Sam and the others come running down the stairs. Sam was jabbering away on a radio, and Mikaela was carrying Wheelie. Simmons was babbling at and with Leo. Suddenly Sam tucked away the radio.

"We gotta go, they dropped Optimus, lets go, lets go, lets go!" He jittered.

I folded down quickly and popped open my doors, "Sam, Mikaela, get in. I'll take you there faster, I've got the better sand tires for it."

Both humans, and little Wheelie who was toted along, scrambled into my front seats. I slid my seatbelts over them and shut my own doors with a bang. I accepted a comm. link with Bumblebee. '_What in the pit are you doing Nightstrider?_' he asked me as he folded down and the twins followed. Simmons and Leo went into the twins, and they drove a separate direction.

'_I have the better off road ability Bumblebee; I can get them there faster with out the risk of hurting myself. You're the better fighter, to keep us safe if something comes up._' I explained. I was also going to try and get them closer then that half a mile they had to run last time.

We both took off, Sam giving me instructions on where to go as he kept a hand fisted on the sock full of Matrix bits. Mikaela kept a hand held tightly to the small robot clinging to her, and the other clutching my door as we zoomed over dunes.

'_I see._' Bumblebee was quiet for a bit. '_I'll keep you covered then, just try and keep them safe._'

I revved my engine and took to the air for a moment, Sam screamed like a girl and Mikaela closed her eyes tightly. I landed with a small oomph on my part, my shocks absorbing most of the bounce, and a wave of sand washed over me briefly, and then I was zooming through it. '_Will do my best, Bumblebee._'

'_It's all I can ask._'

I ploughed through another dune, and had to use my shocks to absorb the landing again so I didn't give the humans within me whiplash. "Can't you drive a bit smoother?" Mikaela gritted out. "Maybe _over_ the dunes instead of through them? Or maybe travel on the top of them, because then you could go faster?"

"I'm saving us valuable time by driving in a straight line, and I'm doing the best I can to absorb the landing in my shocks for you two." I answered through the radio.

"She's right." Sam grunted. "Strider is saving us valuable time, and time is important right now."

"I know but-"

"I'm doing the best I can, Mikaela." I interrupted her. "I'm not fully grown yet, and I wont be for a while, and I'm pushing my speed in this heat. I'm close to overheating my engine." My fans were working double time, and my blackish paint wasn't helping. When I repaint myself, I may just change my color. Maybe to something cool, like a baby blue. Or white. Then it would be extremely difficult to overheat. "I'm not a bot that's built for high speeds in long distances, only for offroading and short-ish bursts of speed."

Coming up the top of a larger dune I had to engage my four-wheel drive, which jolted us forward a bunch. We sailed over it, and landed hard. Or at least I did. It hurt my shocks.

We continued on a bit, no more words passed between us, and then I swerved sharply to avoid a Decepticon that launched at us in mid transformation. Bumblebee met him in a large clash, forcing the message into my mind. '_Go! I'll catch up!_' I didn't hesitate; I poured the speed on as we came into the village, which was now turned into a war zone.

I inched around a building that was as close as I could get and popped my doors open and unclipped my seat belts. "Be safe." I warned. "I'll cover you if I can."

They nodded, and without another word, took off. I transformed, and began sneaking between buildings, and through the, when I could. I watched, and aided bots as they needed it from a distance with my shoulder cannons, though I did end up shooting the heads off several little Decepticons if they got close enough to Sam and Mikaela. There was nothing I could do, however, when the motorcycle trio, including my mother, was killed. I heard Ironhide roar loudly from where ever he was at the loss of his sparkmate.

The pain that came crippling through our bond made me almost drop from my perch in the middle of a huge hollowed out archway, though I got no words or thoughts of any kind. Just feelings. Now I truly was alone, and I had never even gotten to make up with her… If my claws had slid back in and I would have fallen, then I would have been at the mercy of the Decepticon that was prowling under the arch. He seemed to spot my temporary charges, and was beginning to laugh quietly to himself. This Decepticon was a Canadian goose poop color, and stood maybe as tall as Bumblebee. His armor was the normal jagged that most Decepticons had, and he had overly large door wings. He was one of the ones who helped murder Elita, Chromia, and Arcee. I funneled that pain from Elita's death into as much rage and anger as I could, and swung myself down so I landed on his shoulders with my toe claws and had my hands wrapped around his larger helm.

I thanked everything out there, because I had actually taken to working in the gym and had improved my strength. While I couldn't flip a mech Ironhides size, probably not even Bumblebee's, I still had enough strength to do what I just did. I dug my claws into the base of his helm, tore through cables, and then grasped his spinal column. His clawed hands came up quickly to grab at me, and he managed to pull a couple pieces of my outer armor off, though it didn't do any damage to the under armor as he began to bounce himself around and tried to dislodge me. All he did was loosen some armor plattings.

I gave a feral snarl, and severed his spinal column. From there his body fell limp without his processor able to send the electromagnetic waved to control it. As he started falling, I twisted and yanked hard, and then his head tore clean off with a spray of energon.

I moved my legs so they wouldn't get crushed, and then when he hit the ground I slid down until I crouched in front of his decapitated body. I tossed his head and kept my sensors alerted for a Decepticon approach, and then I reached inside, moved wires out of the way, and then I clawed at his spark casing. I was going to crush this ones spark…

When I finally got a hole in the casing, I pulled the still beating spark out of its casing and then I looked at it. It pulsed in a pure blue color, so beautiful. I crushed it in both hands, causing more energon to splatter across my chassis. I then whirled, and began tracking Sam and Mikaela down again.

I spotted Sam and Mikaela racing across a small open expanse, dodging Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, who were kicking Decepticon ass. I darted out and across, keeping tabs on the four battling bots, and the scurrying humans. I had to do a baseball slide, which tore a couple loose plattings from my body, and snatch the humans out of the way for a short moment as Sunstreaker hauled his Decepticon into the air. It would have landed on Mikaela and Sam if I hadn't interfered, though I lost some armor.

I set the humans down across the open expanse, and then they were off again

"Princess? What the frag are you doing here?" I heard Sideswipe call. Sunstreaker grunted, and I heard him grumble about his ruined paint.

I looked over at them, gave a wave, and then was off before I could be forced to answer. I heard various curse words spewed as I left.


	29. Rod Ripping

(_**Howdy ya'll! I am completely ecstatic to be writing this chapter, and am seated with my music on and a bottle of tea next to me with the keyboard in front of me. My mind is boggled with all sorts of ideas, but I can't tell you otherwise I'd be giving spoilers and I cant do that or I'd ruin the story for everyone!**_

_**Lets hope you all enjoy this as much as I do, even though I suck Deceptibutt at writing fight scenes ^_^.**_

_**I've been thinking about titles for if I do a sequel, which I am kind of leaning towards. Some titles for the sequel to this include 'Keep A Hold On It' and 'Ride It Through'. I am open to suggestions, though try and keep in mind I'm trying to stick close to the grab it by the horns motto and stuff, so yeah. Lemme know what you think!**_

_**Further notice, Tiffany is starting to heal I think. I can't carry anything heavy though; I learned this today. My leg, while I can walk with a limp just fine, isn't healed enough for me to carry anything heavier then a cat. I had to carry a fifty-two pound bag of dog food for my Mama today, and my leg thought it was convenient to give out. Scared my mama half to death when I just suddenly dropped while pouring the dog food into the food bin.**_

_**^_^ Reviews, Favorites, and Alert subscriptions are welcome, and if you want to send me a link to your picture so I can see its awesomeness, then your free to draw me any scene or characters together from GIBTH~**_)

I was pinned, not in the literal sense, in between a hard surface with guns and another hard surface that had claws bigger then my own and a harmless wall at my back. I had been grappling with a smaller silver colored Decepticon that had managed to jump me while I was keeping an eye on Sam and Mikaela, and had been so close to getting my claws close enough to rip his throat out. Then this big ol' black and silver brute comes along and throws me off his pal and through one of the ancient buildings.

The black and silver Decepticon stood roughly eighteen foot tall and had these menacing claws that were several times larger then my own hand claws. He was missing the toe claws however, so I had him beat there. He stood on thick legs with thick arms and a thick torso. He looked like he was designed for just brawling. I was sooo screwed if I have to grapple with him. Maybe… his overly burly arms would make it difficult for him to bend this way and that. Hmm, I may stand a chance after all if I have to get close. Maybe.

The silver bot was about twelve foot tall, and was loaded with blasters and all that jazz. He was thick like the last mech, but not nearly as thick limb wise, but he had huge ass hands. Like, one of his fingers was about as round had two and a half of mine. His body was devoid of any physical weapons, just filled to the brim with blasters.

I fluffed myself up in my slightly crouched position, rocking from toe pad to toe pad. My claws were in, I would use them as a last minute thing, and my shoulder blasters were out with one pointed at each Decepticon.

"What do you know~ we got ourselves a little femme in a corner." The big black one rumbled. "What should we do with her Shortshot?" he sarcastically asked the little silver Decepticon, who was apparently called Bane.

Bane rumbled with a laugh and powered up his cannons, "I say ruff her up a bit, and then take turns with her, eh Chokehold?"

"Not a shot in the pits Shortshit." I hissed.

"Ooh, feisty. I don't like 'em like that, but I'm sure Shortshot here can break you of that." Chokehold laughed. "If not, then I guess I get the pleasure of breaking you to be my berth glitch." Oh no, he did not just call me what I think he did. I revved my engine angrily.

"Shortshit!" the little silver bot rumbled. "Chokehold, don't interfere. Let me… have my _fun_ with the little femme…"

Chokehold seemed to sigh, and then stood up and crossed his arms as much as he could across his chest. He paced a bit away, like thirty or so feet, and then looked as if he was keeping an eye out. Never seen a Decepticon watch out for a fellow con, so that's new. "I'll keep watch then, just leave me _something_ left to frag."

Shortshot approached slowly, grinning sadistically as he did. "If you come any closer, lets say another two feet" I warned fiercely, "then I'm going to rip your interface rod right off of your still moving body."

"The only think your gonna do, is bend over and take my rod up your-" he stepped the next two feet. I didn't let him finish; I launched myself at him while simultaneously firing my blasters and destroying a few of Shortshot's own blasters.

I landed a little too far to the right on his chassis, my toes dug into his shin metal and my hands on his shoulder area, and I set myself to sliding my claws out just enough to hang on but not to let the other Decepticon see what I was up to and began ripping at the guns where they were connected to their frame. Having fixed Ironhide's guns back to his frame before, I knew the weak points on the guns to hit. Each gun I separated forcefully, let out a spray of energon that splattered over me and dripped down his armor.

Shortshot began firing his arm blasters as close to me as he could. When that didn't work, he began I'm guessing swearing in Cybertronian at me. His blunt, clawless, fingers dug at me, though his fingers were too thick to slip between the small gaps in my armor, so he began to try for the spots I had lost armor previously. He succeeded a bit, pulling off a few more pieces and exposing a medium size spot on my back between my door wings, and he managed to snag a couple small energon lines, and though I wasn't in any danger of 'bleeding out' it didn't feel good at all. Its moments like this when I am totally glad that I have two layers of armor instead of one, even though the second isn't really good at all.

It took me a bit, but managed to painfully remove all of his shoulder and upper arm cannons. I put a couple of dents in his right wrist blaster, but couldn't get to his left one. With my slightly out toe claws I began pulling his armor from his legs and worked my way up. With my hand claws, I scratched and tugged at his helm armor as he began to screech.

"Chokehold! Chokehold get this pit slagging glitch off me!" Decepticons are a bunch of cowards. Get their asses handed to them by a smaller bot and they screech to get saved.

'_I need help! Big ass con is gonna jump my aft! Literally!_' I cried out over the public Autobot comm. links. I had good reason too though. Chokehold had looked my way with a grin and was now slowly coming this way.

'_On it._' Sunstreaker replied.

"My, my, my, Shortshot. Not mech enough to handle a femme youngling?" Chokehold teased. I think it was teasing anyways.

My foot scraped down Shortshots stomach, and then I sprang all my claws out as my foot slipped down towards his codpiece (the Cybertronian version of a cup, but both species have them. Just females are skintight). When I found the edge, I let out a feral screech and sank my claws under it until I pierced some sort of soft metal.

The bot beneath me began this unholy shrieking noise that hurt my audios. Shortshot began bashing at my armor; his overly large fists left decent dents in my armor that would have to be bashed out later by Ratchet. I flung my self backwards, taking what ever I had hit with me. There was a spray of energon from Shortshot's pelvic area, and then he dropped like a rock clutching at himself. He curled himself into a pathetic ball of screaming Decepticon, and it honestly was so disgraceful that I didn't even want to offline the slagger.

As Chokehold flew at me, I prepared to be tackled to the ground. Only I didn't. Sunstreaker appeared from somewhere and tackled the slagger in mid leap. They both tumbled out of the little corner thing we were in and into the open.

Sideswipe poked his head in through the archway and looked to me, "Princess?" he called.

I held up a hand and shuffled a bit off of my foot that had what ever else I had ripped out stuck in my claws. My eyes caught the codpiece and a limp energon covered interface rod. "I'm here Sideswipe." I answered tiredly.

He was quick as he moved in and scanned over my form. "Damage?" he asked as he neared me. His gaze shifted to the now quietly whimpering pile of Decepticon that was nearest the wall. "What the slag happened to him?"

"Missing armor and a couple small lines have been damaged as far as I can tell." I answered. My gaze shifted to Shortshot. "Him and the other one wanted to have a little 'fun' with me. I told him if he got too near that I would remove his interface rod." I motioned to the rod on the sandy ground as I used my opposite foot claws to remove the residue from underneath my stuck claws. "As you can see, I was true to my word."

Sideswipe actually winced and his hand passed over his own codpiece as he stared at the Decepticon. "You know, I pity the stupid fragger, but he deserved it. He isn't going anywhere anytime soon. I know I wouldn't, anyways." Sideswipe turned his attention back to me. "Now, why are you here, and why did you leave so quick when we were fighting earlier."

"I was temporarily guarding Sam and Mikaela, and I've tried to stay close to them during all of this. These two goons got me though." I answered

'_Sam! No! I've failed!_' I recognized the transmission as Bumblebee's over the Autobot public comm. links. '_You can't be gone!_' his anguished voice wailed.

"Sam…" I groaned. I knew he would have to die, but it still made me feel like I had failed in a way because I wasn't there trying to defend him.

Sideswipe didn't have anything to say to that, other then, "Well slag, what the pit was this all for then?"

I ran a hand over my helm and walked forward until I could watch Sunstreaker beating the shit out of Chokehold. Sometimes he scares me; Sunstreaker does with the way he fights; like some sort of caged beast. Sideswipe joined me and we both watched some major ass kicking happen. I could really use some popcorn right now. To bad I cant eat the damn stuff. I was really just resting; my automatic repair systems were working to fix my severed energon lines.

Sideswipe set a hand on my shoulder and smiled in an amused way, as if there was no epic battle of life or death happening in front of us. "Don't ever pull a move like that in a friendly spar."

"Like what?" I asked.

"The interface rod. That's something that actually _can't_ be reattached." Sideswipe chuckled.

I grimaced. "I had to keep my word you know, I don't want to ruin my reputation by becoming a liar now do I?" I joked a bit.

"I suppose not…" He chirped dryly. I guffawed at him.

Ever violent Sunstreaker let out a string of profanity and then ended his little death match by rendering Chokeholds head from his body and then pulling his spark out like I had with the one Decepticon that had been part of Elita's murder.

"He saw your kill." Sideswipe commented. "He's just copying you."

I gave him a sidelong glance, "How the hell do you even know that it was my kill?"

Sideswipe subspaced a piece of my armor with a grin. "Your shedding, Princess. It's kinda gross." He joked.

I rolled my optics as he re-subspaced the armor bit. "Funny Funny ha ha." I grumped. "I do not shed! Decepticons just keep trying to steal my armor."

"Sideswipe!" Called Sunstreaker. "Help me with this lard aft. He has a couple pieces of my armor under him."

Sideswipe sighed and moved to go help his twin. I laughed slightly.

I suddenly felt one of the bonds snap open with such a force that it made me gasp. What wasn't there for what felt like eternity was now there; Optimus was back online. He was groggy, unsure of what exactly was going on, but it was kind of expected, but he sent his confused and hurt love over our bond. I returned it in force, though I added how much I missed him and how glad I was that he was back.

"Optimus is back!" I exclaimed happily.

I bounced slightly as both of the twins' faces lit up, and then they both let out a happy whoop.

Suddenly there was a loud ringing noise, two actualy, and I felt a burning pain go through my chassis. At first I though maybe something happened to Optimus so soon, or maybe it hurt getting the new parts added to him, but I felt something hot roll down my lower chassis plates and stomach. I also felt a trickling down my back.

The twins looked outraged, and they were quickly approaching me. Why? I looked down. There was a gaping hole in my chassis, and I could see my spark beating feebly through the hole as it had apparently went through my spark chamber. There was also another, slightly smaller, that had blown out part of my stomach area.

I felt arms go around me as my legs went out, and found myself cradled by Sunstreaker as Sideswipe rushed into the corner area with a roar that echoed in my audios. I shut my bond with Optimus so I didn't distract him. Last thing he needed was to die again.

I felt my spark begin to pulse painfully, and I could see it beating and struggling erratically to keep pulsing.

Not a moment later I saw Sideswipe enter my field of vision as both him and Sunstreaker began to run. To where, I don't know. "Her spark's been nicked." Sunstreaker stated.

"Slag it," Sideswipe trailed off into curses. He went ahead of his brother and plowed through a wall to make a short cut. I bet it dinged up his armor, but apparently he didn't mind. "You better keep that spark pulsing, Princess, or Prime will have our afts. We were assigned to guard you until he returned, and his order still stands."

I simply jerked as a pain went through my spark again, and I saw it flicker, once, twice, thrice, before it began to dim along with my vision. I built up feelings of love for Optimus, and regret that I didn't get to make up with Elita.

I was passed to Sideswipe as Sunstreaker went to remove a Decepticon in our pathway. Sideswipe kept going. "No, no, no, come on Princess! Were almost to Hatchet, he'll fix you up, okay? Just keep your spark beating and-"

I never did get to hear the rest of his words, though because my spark flickered once more brightly, and then dimmed lower until my vision went black.

(_**I'm evil, I left a cliffhanger! And this is probably the only ending note I'll do. These tend to drive me bonkers.**_)


	30. Broken Tears

(_**I love you all~ don't hate me for the cliffhanger! I'll try to make it better, I promise!**_

Thanks again everyone, though name suggestions are still open if you want a sequel, and if I don't get any then I probably will only make this a single story unless I find a name to my satisfactory.

OMG. I can't believe that Grab It By The Horns is already at thirty chapters! It feels like I haven't even made a dent in the story! Whoohoo!

So that should tell ya'll that there's a lot for ya'll to look forward too in the future ^_^

_**Enjoy the chapter please, and I hope this is to everyone's satisfactory and it made me cry a little while I wrote it...**_

_**Okay, I cried a lot. A whole lot. I actually had to go take a break to wipe my eyes and go through a half a roll of toilet paper blowing my nose.**_)

I opened my optics to find myself staring up at a dark sky, and laying in sand. At first I thought I was still alive, but if I was still alive, then I'm guessing we would have already been on a plane or home. That and I couldn't feel my bond with Optimus. I gave a grunt and hauled myself up. I could feel the holes through my frame, though I was no longer leaking energon and my spark was beating normally through the hole-filled casing.

When I was sat up, I ran a hand over my optics, and then found myself scooped up way off the ground before I could do anything. My face was set in front of a face I hadn't seen in a long while. "**Youngling, you have gotten your self into a load of trouble, haven't you?**"

"Well," I contemplated. "Yeah, but trouble tends to happen in war. Look at me, I died twice." I squinted at him. "What the frag have you been up to, huh old timer?"

Primus sighed and settled me on his hip and strode away from what looked like a large sand cave. "**I know this, young Nightstrider. I only wish you would have been more careful.**" He got this odd glint in his optics as he stepped over a bunch of sandstone. "**I quite enjoy watching you go about your daily life over my pool. It is much like one of those human sitcom things, though much more dramatic.**"

I groaned and covered my optics with one hand. "You know, it isn't considered polite to stalk people. Even if you're dead. That's called haunting."

Primus let out a chuckle. "**Quite the opposite little one. I want to see you have a full life this time around. From watching you, I've come to think you like my… how do the humans put it… granddaughter? Yes, that's the word.**" _Great._ An ancient giant robot god thinks me as his grandchild. I pity the fool to piss off 'grandpa bot'. "**You are taking your second death well. It surprises me.**" He stepped roughly again, and I could hear vivid talking not to far away. I think my ears are messing with me though; it's probably just our voices echoing in the sandy place.

I sighed and dragged my hands over my optics. "Yeah, it surprises me too. I guess that after dieing once and coming back again as an entirely different species can take all the shocks of life out of you. Or at least, for these sorts of situations." I gave a grunt as Primus shifted me to his other hip as he swung around a corner.

He sighed. "**I hadn't intended for you to offline again so soon, young one. We will see how this all plays out however, and if I do not like it, then I will make a few altercations. I much enjoy watching over you. It gives me much more to think on other then the war.**"

"Glad I could be your entertainment…" I commented dryly. I hefted up a sigh that seemed to wheeze out of my intakes. "So what's with the holes? I don't really like feeling like robotic Swiss cheese in robot heaven." Ah food humor, it never fails to entertain me, even after I'm dead for the second time.

"**Technically you are limbo, and therefore haven't passed through the healing walls into the well of all sparks. That is the reason for your damage. The others have their damages as well.**" Primus rumbled. I could hear voices louder now, as if they were just around another corner. How many corners are there in this stupid sandy place? A million?

"Others?" I questioned.

"**Your adopted mother and her siblings. No others perished.**"

I sighed. That was good, and bad. Now my father is all alone on earth. Right now I pity the Fallen and any mech that stands in his way. I sighed again. "I have a question: you said earlier that if you didn't like the outcome, then you would change it a bit. Does this mean you're responsible for my growth spurts?"

"**Yes.**" He answered unabashedly. "**While indeed I find you to be amusing, watching you grow slowly was a thought that bored me. Besides, you have an interesting story ahead of you.**"

"So you know what's going to happen to me in the future then?" I questioned again. I shifted my wings, wincing at the odd feeling of them brushing against the wound on my back.

Primus smiled in a humored way. "**Not at all.**" He practically chirped. Great, an old bot with an odd sense of humor.

"Nightstrider?" I heard Elita ask. Everything else came to a stop noise wise, and I looked at her. All three had holes through their sparks, much like myself, though they had dents and dings and numerous other damages on them. They all looked tired. Very tired.

"**Looks as if your mother wants to talk to you. I will retrieve you again when you have this dispute with her solved.**" With that said, Primus set me gently in front of the trio, and went over to a large stone bowl looking thing. There were reflections on his face, as if there was a liquid in the stone bowl.

I was snatched into a set of damaged arms, and had my face pressed to my adopted mothers throat cables. "You can't be dead, you can't be. You had so much ahead of you. Too young. Too young." Elita groaned. "How?"

I hugged her back, all problems previously forgotten for the moment. "I got caught by surprise. I thought the Con was down, so did Sideswipe, and I turned my back on him to watch Sunstreaker battle it out with a big brute of a Decepticon." I coughed slightly as I inhaled a wisp of sand from Elita's armor. "I tore off his interface rod with my claws though."

Chromia had come up and gave me an affectionate helm rub. "Good for you kid, good for you. I trust the Con was killed before you off-lined?"

"I'm pretty sure." I answered. Elita hugged me tighter, and cooed at me. "Sideswipe killed him I think." I squinted up at her. "Ironhide didn't take your off-lining well."

"I figured as much." She sighed and walked away, snagging Arcee too and dragging her away to give us some time.

"Mom?" I asked and pushed myself away. I sighed. "Look, alright, I'm-"

"-Sorry." Elita stated. "I shouldn't have pushed that you stay home, because it wouldn't have worked anyways. So I'm sorry. Forgive me?" she offered her arms again.

I hugged her again. "I'm sorry for being stubborn, but that's something that wont ever change. I'm also sorry for blocking you out when Papa died. I kind of… blamed you a bit for not being there by his side, helping him fight… it was wrong of me."

Elita cradled my helm to her throat cables again and laid her helm on top of mine with a sigh deep from within her intakes. "No apology needed. To a certain degree, I blamed myself too."

I backed up again after squeezing her once more. "So we're okay now?"

She smiled at me and traced a hand over one of my ear spike like things, which I found out actually are my ears in a way. So I guess my Optimus imitation isn't so much of an imitation as an actual use. "Yes. We're okay."

"**Good.**" Primus rumbled. I was scooped up and away from Elita. I gave a disgruntled noise. "**I am borrowing you for now. Do not worry, you will be together again soon.**" I was toted away as Elita sighed and I saw her go join her sisters.

I was set on the rim of the giant bowl, and I watched as images from the living world flashed across it. "So this is how you watch?"

"**Yes.**"

I watched things play out; though there was no sound I somehow knew what was being said. It was also strange watching what was going on down where my body was while I was technically dead. Much like an out of body experience.

Optimus was rushing back to the village, as fast as he could. There was a tormented look on his face plattings, an almost broken look. It flashed to the village. Ironhide was kneeling with Chromia's body pulled to his chassis. His helm was bowed, so we didn't get to see his expression, but there were a few strangely liquid dots rolling down Chromia's armor. Arcee was laid out next to Elita, both had their arms laid flat at their sides like they were relaxing, and I was laid carefully on the other side. My body looked strange from my view. The spots where the blasts had torn through me, the armor was bent outward like something had forced its way out. There was dried and crusted energon along my armor, along with slightly fresh blue blood as well and I had sand everywhere. My wings were laid out flat, my optics were closed and dark, my feet were set in a relaxed sort of way, and I had my hands folded over an undamaged bit of hip armor. I looked, for all the world, to have been relaxing when I slipped into a stasis lock. The lack of light from my chest however broke the image.

The larger twins were off taking their frustrations at failure out on a pillar. The Chevy twins were seated next to Simmons and Leo who were hiding in the shade provided by their bodies, and they looked quite depressed. Sam, Mikaela, Sam's parents, and Bumblebee weren't in the shot. Ratchet was tending to Jolt, who looked like he got a severed arm fighting. Lennox was standing next to my helm, along with Epps. Both men had a hand pressed to the metal of it. I could hear what they were saying quite clearly.

"She was too young for this…" Lennox commented. "She was too young for war, still just a child… no child should be in war." His hand brushed some sand away gently. "It's like loosing your own kid when you see an innocent child killed."

Epps moved his hand forward until it brushed along my body's cheek. "At least she isn't hurting anymore. She's in a better place now." He leaned forward and brushed a brother kiss against my body's cheek. "Rest in peace little big sister." And he moved away, though he rubbed a hand over his eyes.

Will moved forward, and traced a hand down the side of my face. "I'll miss you kid, we all will, but I hope you're happy where ever you went." He too leaned forward and ghosted a kiss over my bodies' cheek plating as well. "Rest in peace kiddo, and don't worry. We'll try and take care of your pop, okay?" Will sucked in a loud breath and moved away to follow Epps.

When they both were farther from my body, leaning against the ruins of a building, Will pressed his hands to his eyes and sighed. "It always kills a little bit of me inside when I see a child killed. It's worse since I knew Nightstrider… it makes me think of what Optimus must be feeling. I know how I would feel if it were Sarah and Annabelle in their place instead…"

"I know Will. I know." Epps agreed. "It makes it worse when you know the one who died…"

The scene flashed over to the group that we hadn't seen yet. Bumblebee was seated on the ground, just out of the shot from the first bit. Sam was holding Mikaela, who was buried in his chest and from the shaking of her shoulders she was also crying. Wheelie, who had disappeared to somewhere during the fight, was sitting next to her with his head resting on her thigh. All three were under the shade of one of Bumblebee's knees. Bumblebee himself had his optics focused on Arcee, a look of pain crossing his face. I knew they weren't sparkmates, but they had been good friends back on Cybertron. Arcee had told me once.

"I don't see what's so sad about a bunch of dead robots." Judy commented from her seat next to Ron. Both were under the shade with Sam and Mikaela. "Their war made our son die!"

"Mom." Sam griped. "These 'robots' were protecting us, and that little black one on the end? She was tailing us and trying to keep the Decepticons from getting us. She died protecting us." In a way. I got killed by the Decepticon I had incapacitated, so really I didn't die saving them. I died because I lost focus.

The angle shifted again, and I saw Optimus come thundering into Camp. He slowed, and when he reached mine and Elita's bodies, his legs gave and he hit the ground on his knees. His hands shook, and they reached out to touch the bodies. He was swift in his motions as he pulled us gently and swiftly to his chassis. His helm bowed so we couldn't see his face, and then he threw his head back with the most pain-ridden cry I had ever heard. I cringed, and I saw all the other bots avert their optics from their leader as he broke.

His helm bowed again, and then the view zoomed in so we could see his face. The great Optimus Prime, with his head bowed into our body's throat cables, began to leak grief ridden energon tears from his optics.

The view zoomed to Judy, who was staring at Optimus with an odd look. "Why is he acting like that? She whispered to Sam. Mikaela began to cry harder.

Sam sniffed and explained. "Mom, in our terms, those were his wife, the purple one, and daughter the black one. His daughter was younger then I am. He lost them both in one shot, and didn't even get to say goodbye. Now he's grieving."

Judy held a hand to her mouth and I watched her eyes fill with tears. She turned herself and buried her face into Ron, who looked bewildered as it was. I couldn't make out a single word she was blubbering.

I felt my own optics water, though no tears fell, but that was a natural reaction to all the sadness I was seeing. It happened in movies when I was human too.

It was some time later, maybe an hour or so for them though up here it was maybe a couple of minutes when Sam seemed to get a light flipped on inside his head.

I pulled away and looked to Primus. "There really isn't a way for us to go back, is there?"

He shushed me. "**Just watch.**"

I turned my attention back to the bowl.

Optimus stood up, with my body cradled gently in one arm and Elita's cradled in the other. He seemed to have gotten himself together, because his voice didn't portray any form of grief. It actually seemed broken, and cold. "Autobots; let us return to Diego Garcia. We will have all the time we need to finish mourning out losses there."

"Optimus!" Sam called. I saw him come running up, with Mikaela following.

Optimus turned a weary look to Sam. "Yes Sam?"

"I revived you with the Matrix of Leadership." Sam stated. Well duh. "Isn't it possible that you could use that to revive them too?"

Optimus's optics seemed to get a new light, one that comes and goes in strength as I've seen. Hope. "Ratchet?"

The view shifted to Ratchet, who was scooping up Arcee. "We can try back at Diego Garcia. I need to repair them first, otherwise if we succeed they would end up off-lining again anyways. It would be for naught if we tried it now." He nodded. "But yes, it should work."

I pulled away and sent the giant mech in front of me a look. He blinked his optics down at me. "You planned this all along didn't you?"

He rumbled a laugh. "**There are several outcomes in life, and this was one of them. I just didn't think it would happen. So in a way, yes. I did plan this.**"

I sent him a wry grin. "You sly slagger." I blinked and glanced back at the pool. It had fast forwarded and now they were at Diego Garcia.

Ratchet was busy working on the trio, and looked to be about done. My body was scrubbed clean, and it let me see that I needed new armor if I came back alive and I really needed a new paint job.

"When do we go back?"

"**In time.**"


	31. Promise

(_**So I hope you all found the last chapter as interesting as I did, but other then that, I really have nothing else talk about in here.**_

_**I still haven't gotten any title suggestions, so please I could use some help on those.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy the thirty- first chapter of Grab It By The Horns.**_)

I watched through the pool as our bodies were repaired, and it seemed to take a couple of weeks because they didn't have the correct parts at some points. Optimus and Ironhide spent a fair bit of time together talking about which they would try reviving first, and it was decided that Jazz would be first to try and be brought back.

Primus had brought Jazz into limbo with us when this was learnt, though he had been disgruntled because a mech that had earned his time of peace was being brought back into war. Jazz has been comatose next to the pool since he was brought here. The old bot says Jazz should wake up soon though.

Primus had informed my adopted mother and her sisters of the news, and he had also enlightened them that I wouldn't be spending my time here with them because he wanted company and back on earth they would have all the time they needed to be with me. To me, his reason was a bit childish and I told him this. He had simply laughed at me and said that acting old and wise constantly is boring so he just adds a little fun to his life any way he can. I couldn't argue there.

He also informed them, and myself, that the process of being revived isn't pleasant. It usually hurts, a lot, as the spark is dragged back into the body, and then when you're in your body, your joints are stiff because they haven't been moved. Though, he says in our case our joints shouldn't be too stiff because Ratchet moved all our limbs in case we would end up stiff. He even moved Jazz's.

I watched as armor was removed and replaced, and Ratchet worked himself ragged the whole time. He kept himself hyped up on energon for a good part of the time, and only rested when ordered by Optimus. Eventually, all the armor that we had been missing was all replaced though left unpainted. Looks like I would still need to be painted.

I sighed and dropped my head against the side of the pool. "Hey? Does this thing go to other universes?"

"**Yes. You want to look in on your human family.**" It wasn't a question, but I nodded anyways. "**Things have changed, and years have passed since your death, Nightstrider.**" He didn't say anything further, but the pool's image changed.

I saw my cousins at my funeral, even my newest little cousin. It was a little girl who was named, Anne Marie Anderson. My oldest cousin Skyler was wearing the bracelet he had given me, and was standing next to Kendal. Kendal was next to Sean, who was bandaged up, and both were saluting my coffin. My middle cousin was crying on my Uncles shoulder, and I saw my grandparents crying their hearts out.

The scene shifted to several years later, at what looked like a family reunion. My picture was on a table along with my Mothers and my Grandmas. Skyler was standing hand in hand with a gorgeous woman, and I could see rings glinting from their fingers. The woman's belly was distended, and it zoomed in to show that it was moving slightly. I cracked a smile. My cousin was starting a family. Still on his wrist was the bracelet.

He led the woman to the picture table, and though I couldn't hear them I watched what he mouthed. "You see this woman here?" he picked up the picture of me. "This was my cousin. She died fighting for our country. Her name was Nichole."

The woman mouthed, "She gave you that bracelet you never take off."

Skyler shook his head. "No. I made it for her for luck, and she kept it with her. She asked her army friend, Kendal, to make sure I would get it, as she was dieing."

The picture flipped to my other cousins. My littlest was doing good in college, and my middle cousin was happily married to an ex marine. My grandpa was living with my aunt and uncle now that my grandma passed on.

The picture flipped again, and showed Kendal. She was out of the army by now, and had four kids with another on the way. When I first met her, she said she would never have kids. Time changes people I suppose. She, surprisingly, married Sean even though there was a major age difference. Well, I suppose age doesn't matter in love.

The scene flashed forward to Skyler walking out of the hospital room with a small pink blanket in his arms. He was smiling, and in scrubs. "Meet my daughter, Nichole Ray Anderson." He mouthed. I smiled again. He named his daughter after me. "I wish she could meet her namesake, she was a wonderful woman."

The pool suddenly flipped back to the med bay as ratchet stood up happily and then left the bay.

I sighed and stepped away. "Thank you. They moved on."

"**But they never forgot.**" Primus agreed. He turned and strolled down to the trio and started chatting to Chromia about something.

"Nng." I heard a moan from somewhere to my right. I angled my head and saw Jazz sitting up. "Where the frag am I?"

"In limbo, waiting for your resurrection. Welcome to the world of awareness, Jazz." I stated. I turned around, giving him a clear view of myself, and leaned sideways against the pool.

The saboteur ran a hand over his optics and then blinked up at me as he realized that his visor was gone. "Well hello to you too, lil lady. Did you say limbo?" he ran his eyes over me curiously. They looked slightly startled at the hole blown through my chassis and stomach, but other then that there wasn't much else. They drifted to my face again. "I don't think I know you, do I? Though you seem to know my name."

I waved a hand and rolled my eyes. "I know you because my father told me about you. As for limbo? Well yes, I reckon that I did say limbo. You're here with us until your resurrection, which should be soon." A glance at the pool proved my point.

"What's your mech creators designation, lil' lady?" Jazz chimed. He grinned at me. "If I knew who your father was then I might remember who you are."

I shifted my gaze from him back to the pool. "You can see for yourself when you go back. It'll be a couple of seconds." Yep. Optimus was holding the Matrix of Leadership over Jazz's chest plates. I could see Ironhide standing next to Chromia, his huge hand gripping hers and dwarfing it by the sheer size of it. Next to my body, I could see Sideswipe and Sunstreaker on ether side of me. Sideswipe had a guilty look on his face, and Sunstreaker looked like he could care less. I could see a slight slant to his optics though, that said he was feeling the exact opposite.

Bumblebee was standing towards the back of the room where the computers were, Ratchet and Jolt were both monitoring spark activity on them, and he had humans in his hands, on his shoulders, seated on his feet, and standing around him. I'm guessing he was the designated human safety point. The Chevy twins weren't there, so I'm guessing it was to keep them from accidentally screwing anything up.

I heard Jazz gasp as the first sparks from the Matrix of Leadership arched into his chest. I looked at him. His hand was clutching to his chassis and his optics were wide. "What the frag was that?"

"Keep calm." I stated and stared at him. I wanted to see what it would look like when he went back. "That's just the Matrix of Leadership drawing you back. Don't fight it, just let it flow."

His image started to fade. Whoa. Wicked. He nodded at me. "Okay."

He faded fast, and when he was gone I turned my attention to the pool. I watched Jazz arch up, and then slam down on the table. His visor lit a bright blue, and he sat up ramrod straight seconds later with his lip plates lifted in a fierce look.

"Easy, old friend." Optimus rumbled and set a hand on Jazz's shoulder. "Your safe." Optimus's optics lit with a hopeful look.

"**He wont remember being here; only your words, though how he may remember hearing them we wont know.**" Primus rumbled from behind me.

"I see."

Jolt went to check on Jazz, while Optimus moved on and reactivated Arcee. She didn't react like Jazz had, she took a long while too fully online, and even then she only onlined her optics, coughed up a couple clouds of sand from her intakes (Ratchet must have spaced on cleaning them) and then heaved a happy sigh before drifting off into recharge.

Jolt stated that Jazz was healthy, though he needed to recharge, and then they could work on onlining his weapons again. He gave him a mild sedative that sent Jazz straight into slumber. Jolt then moved onto Arcee, stating she was just very tired, though her systems weren't running perfectly she wasn't in any danger. Optimus moved onto Chromia.

Chromia, when she onlined, shot up and snatched Ironhide in a hug. The burly mech simply bowed his helm into her shoulder joint and held her too him as he shook. Jolt cleared her as healthy though she needed to remain unstressed for a couple of days.

Optimus moved quietly to Elita. He held the Matrix of Leadership over her chassis and watched as it brought her back. When she onlined her optics, he knelt and pulled her off the bed and gently to his chassis. He held her, as she focused and then wrapped her own arms around him as well.

I could hear them loud and clear as though they were talking right into my audio receptors. "I missed you. Primus, I missed you." Optimus spoke softly.

"And I you, myspark." Elita replied. She pressed a soft metallic kiss to Optimus's temple area. "Have you onlined Nightstrider?"

He cast her a blank look. "How did you know she perished? From what I gathered, you had already joined the well of all sparks when she was brought down."

Elita traced a hand over his face softly. "I met her there, myspark. I saw her, walking with Primus himself. I don't remember much else."

" I see." He sighed and pressed his forehead to hers. "No, I haven't onlined her yet. I wanted you to be here for her when I did."

"Good choice." Elita smiled.

From there, Jolt checked her over. He stated she also was fine, she might be a bit stiff but with some rest and then a light bit of walking and moving that she would be fine. He also stated that if any of the resurrected were stiff, they should go to the showers and let hot water wash over them and stretch while they do it. It would help loosen up their joints.

Optimus helped Elita into a transformer-sized chair, provided by Ratchet, which was placed at my bedside. Optimus held the Matrix of Leadership over my chassis, and I watched it begin to spark.

"Bring the Princess back, Boss Bot." Sideswipe murmured. "We have a lot to make up to her." No they didn't. They didn't owe me anything.

When the first spark touched my body's chassis, I wrenched myself away from the pool with a cry as I clutched my own chassis. I felt something trying to tear me away from here. On instinct, I resisted.

"**Easy youngling.**" Primus crooned and set a finger on my back gently.

I looked up at him and cringed. "Will I remember being here? Or will I lose most of it like them?"

Primus shook his head. "**You will retain your memories of your time here, though you must not tell anyone of them.**"

I cried out again as I saw parts of me start to fade out. "I wasn't planning to do that anyways."

"**I know. Relax; let the Matrix take you home, child. You have many who wish you to wake up now. They are starting to think it didn't work on you.**" Primus cooed again. "**I will watch over you in your realm once you return.**"

I cracked a half grin and forced myself to try and relax. It's hard when you are watching yourself disappear before your very eyes. "I'll miss you too, you old coot. Visit me in my dreams sometime?"

Primus cracked a grin back at me, and his optics twinkled in amusement. "**Maybe, young spark, maybe.**"

I smiled and closed my optics. I let the force that was so painfully trying to wrench me away take me.

Slowly I felt myself be painfully dropped into my body. My systems sluggishly started, so slow I didn't even think they would, and then finally I could hear and feel. I felt Optimus's large hand on my legs, and one of my hands was clutched into the familiar hand of Elita.

I couldn't feel ether of their bonds, so that's probably why they didn't know I was back yet.

"-Promise both Sunny and I will completely repaint you however you want with out a complaint if you just online! You're scaring your mother." I heard Sideswipe whispering next to me.

"Yeah, if you at least let us know you're here I'll help Sideswipe paint you. Frag, I'll even let you call me _Sunny_ for pits sake." Sunstreaker grunted from somewhere above me.

I was going to respond, but my vocal processor was a little slow at booting up, though it was almost done now.

"Come on sweetspark, come back to us. Please, please come back." Optimus murmured softly. He rubbed his thumb gently over my knee joint.

My arm was lifted and my palm pressed to a feminine metal face. Elita said nothing, only held my hand there and waited for me.

"Come on Kiddo!" I heard Lennox call from where ever he stood with Bumblebee.

"Get your butt in gear! People are waiting on you to come back!" Epps called after Will.

When I found my mouth to be working correctly now, I croaked with what little air was already in my intakes and onlined my optics. "I'm gonna hold you both to that." I took a breath that wheezed out into metallic coughs. I'm guessing Arcee wasn't the only one who didn't get their intakes cleaned out. A couple clouds of dust and sand jumped out of my intakes and was expelled through my mouth.

I was pulled softly up into the grips of my parents, and I felt the bonds that had been silent suddenly fill up with the essence of them. I felt my father shoving feelings of love at me, and my mother shoving her own along with him. I felt whole. I felt more complete than I had in a while.

I found my face pressed to large throat cables, as Optimus's engine roared loudly, right along with Elita's.

I was gently pulled away by Jolt, who got them to let go just by saying that he needed to check and see if everything was okay.

I was given an okay bill of health. Jolt said that because my spark itself was still healing from being nicked, I would end up having random pains from time to time though he didn't know how painful they would be. He also said I needed rest and after a short cycle of sleep I would need energon. Ratchet chimed in that everyone who was brought back would be staying in the med bay for a couple of days so he could watch to see if anything bad would happen.

Ironhide had simply growled and scooped up Chromia. He toted her behind a giant curtain, and I heard him clang onto the bed. Bumblebee had ushered the humans from the room, with radio clips stating they could see us later. Ratchet had sent the Lamborghini twins running with some sort of threat.

I was simply scooped up by Optimus in one arm, and Elita was snagged in the other. He took us behind another curtain, and then set us on a large bed like the one that was in our room. We laid in our usual fashion with me in the middle of both my parents.

"I missed you both." I stated quietly. I delved into their bonds, sending my love and affection, which was eagerly returned. I sent them my feelings that I had felt when they both offlined, and how fragging glad I was to be back with them both.

"And we you." They both said back to me.

Optimus ran a finger over my chest plates and his optics squinted slightly. I followed his line of sight. There, where my spark had been shot out, were several welds that were pretty much the Cybertronian version of a scar. It would fade soon due to the nannites that naturally run through our bodies and work on healing them. "It hurts still, doesn't it?"

It did a little bit, but it was bearable. "A little." I answered. "Bearable actually." I blinked my optics tiredly at him and snuggled my face into his chest plates, relishing the fact he was back and alive. And that I was too. And so was my adopted mom.

"Rest now, sweetspark. We wont leave you. Not again." Elita cooed to me. She gently ran her hand over my help, rubbing my antenna and audio receptors.

I sighed, and slowly slipped into sleep while back in the grasps of my parents.


	32. Fire Crotch

(_**KIND OF IMPORTANT AUTHORS NOTE: **_

_**Oh wow, I am so sorry that I haven't updated. I would have started last night on the 14**__**th**__**, but I had a dentist appointment this morning and had to go to bed early. Right now my mouth hurts like no other from the stupid vibrating drill thing.**_

_**Please visit my profile, because I have the voice I plan on using possibly for Nightstrider's voice posted.**_

_**I hope this chapter satisfies, because from here I'll probably start doing time skips a bit. Thirty-Two chapters! Holy frag! And in a little bit over a month too. I'm on a roll ^_^.**_

_**Leave a review; add it as a favorite or an alert, but all are appreciated.**_

_**The name game is still going, but I have two names already that are options:**_

'_**Grabbing On To Life'**_

'_**Hold On For Dear Life'**_)

I was kept in the med bay for a week, which was about as fun as sucking on a livewire, due to the fact Ratchet wanted to make sure my systems were working up to par. All five of us were kept here, though we were never along by ourselves because we always had someone visiting us when we weren't conked out cold by boredom. I apparently slept peacefully for quote unquote by Ratchet, 'two fraggin days since I went into recharge'. He also said that I was more like in a stasis, because I ended up growing a bit while I was out. He also said it was for the best that I was out, because it cause an unbelievable amount of stress on my systems. Part of the reason why I was in the med bay for a week was my growth spurt. I went from ten feet and nine hundred pounds to a whopping eleven foot tall weighing in a half a ton, and my voice changed. It's deeper now, more like it used to be, which my human grandma had always compared my voice to the famous singer, Cher. I also now have a defined stomach plating area that spans a foot and a half now, and is covered by flexible black outer plating and soft inner plating.

I am perfectly healthy now, accept for the spark pains I get at random and the fact that the spot where I was shot through my spark is sensitive. I flinch if it's touched the wrong way. As for the spark pain, Ratchet said its because though my spark is back, it is still healing from the chunk that had been taken out of it. He says it wont hurt me, but my parents disagreed. Apparently the knowledge that the pain can differ each time has them a little scared for my safety. Ratchet said they could be as simple as a mild discomfort, to a bout of pain so powerful it can knock me offline. I haven't had any of those, just the mild discomfort ones and a little bit worse.

Personally, I've been out of the med bay for exactly two days. This is the third, and the first day I've been let out of my parents and my room. The other two days were spent with me being coddled and cooed at, and scolded for getting out of bed to get energon. Lets just say that parents usually, no matter if they're biological or adopted, will coddle and baby their children especially if they come back from the dead. Optimus still isn't letting me off the base, so I can't go offroading, and he says that if I fell anything wrong with me at all that I am to get to the med bay. If I can't, then I have to comm. link Ratchet and wait for him to come get me. Elita agrees. Over protective parents are pains in the aft, even if they do it because they love me.

I was currently lounging outside in the sunlight in a sandy spot and letting it warm my circuits because I haven't been able to for a while, and I was also looking up at Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. They were standing in front of me, one with a grimace and the other with a side ways smirk.

"You both owe me that repainting you promised." I stated and stretched my leg muscles.

Sideswipes hand came up and clanged softly with his helm. "Slag, you remember that, Princess?"

"Indeed I do." I agreed. I gave an amused twitch of my door wings and antenna.

Sunstreaker heaved a sigh and shifted a bit to the right. "You have the memory of an elephant don't you?"

I gave the both of them a sly grin and propped my chin up in my hand. "Only when I want to." My door wings twitched again.

Sideswipe sighed and shifted. "Any particular colors, and were assuming you want the same flame design?"

"Indeed I do." I agreed. "Base color should be black or a really dark blue, but you can have fun with the flames coloring. Just don't give me the whole rainbow thing going on, so try and pick colors that don't make me look like I should be some sort of magical princess or some sort of slag like that."

Both of their optics twinkled with amusement but they left to what everyone had started calling the paint shed, Sunstreaker calling back over his shoulder with the sarcasm I had connected with him. "Sure thing _Princess_, no rainbow colors."

"We wont be long!"

I snorted and shook my head before settling down to sun myself some more before I got covered in paint and have to sit still until it dries. I closed my optics with a sigh as the sand tickled and massaged at some of my cables that it managed to slip to from under both layers of armor. I let out a small laugh and shook my foot at the small partials of sand that never failed to get into the arched spot somehow. It tickled there.

My antenna wiggled with delight, dancing along with my door wings, and I let my finger draw a smily-face in the sand. My audio receptors picked out the sound of approaching footsteps; though by the sound of them it wasn't any of the twins. Little twins were too light, and Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were both too heavy for the steps.

I glanced to my left as a certain silver Pontiac Solstice transformer plopped down a couple feet away from me. Jazz and me hadn't really talked in the infirmary, it was a given since I was behind my own curtain and all for ninety nine percent of my visit there.

"Afternoon, Lil' Lady." Jazz greeted me cheerfully with a half wave. Though I couldn't see his optics, from the way a couple cables in-between his faceplates looked pinched, I'm guessing something is bothering him.

"Afternoon, Jazz." I replied. "So what are ya' up to?"

"Nothin' much Lil' Strider." Jazz cracked a grin at me. "So, onto you. What's crack'in?"

I shook my head a bit and then refocused my optics on him. "Not much, just waiting on Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. They're paying up for the promises they made." I let out a small laugh.

"I bet they ain't happy about that." He chortled with me, as he seemed to stare out into the sand.

"Hey Jazz?" I asked after a few seconds. He inclined his head to me to let me know he was listening. "You look like something is bothering you. Penny for your thoughts, questions, etcetera?"

Jazz was silent for a moment. "I need to ask you something."

I grunted and shifted so I lay propped up on my side. "Alright, I'm listening."

The plates that made up his forehead area scrunched slightly together before he said, "I remember a little bit of when we were in the Matrix. I don't remember faces, but… I remember your voice. You told me to be calm, and that I was going back, or something along the lines." I blinked at him. "Was that just a hallucination, or did it actually happen?"

I hummed my engine a bit. Well, since he already knows, it probably wont hurt him to know that it happened… but what if he talks? Well, I guess we cross that bridge if it happens to be in our path. "Yeah," I answered slowly. "It did happen."

"So you remember?" he asked again.

"Not much." I lied. "I remember what I said to you, and a few things I think I said to Mom and the others. The rest is blank."

"I see." He sighed. "Thanks for clearing that up Lil' lady. It's been botherin' my processor since I thought back at what happened."

I rolled myself back onto my stomach and chest with a thump. "Sure, no problem. When ever ya' need someone to talk to, feel free to make use of my ears. Or you can try Papa. I might be a bit more open minded though, being a hell of a lot younger then him."

Jazz sent me a half grin as he moved himself to stand and dusted himself off. "I'll keep that in mind, Lil' Strider. You can chat with me anytime you need some advice, especially if you need help gettin' yourself a mech." He waggled his eyebrow plates at me and half his visor darkened in what I'm assuming was his version of a secret wink.

I blinked lazily up at him. "I'll take you up on the talking part some time, but I can't say I'll be needing any help with the mechs."

"Oh? A little over confident aren't we?"

"Not at all." I snorted. Faintly I could hear the Diablo twins returning. "I'm just to lazy to put effort into impressing a mech. My theory is that if you have to impress them to get them to like you, then they aren't worth your time because someone else could just as easily do the same."

Jazz laughed and turned to walk away. "A little unenthusiastic about that aren't you. But your right, usually it doesn't work out like that anyways." He called back as the Lamborghini twins came into view.

I didn't reply, only lounged myself out again and waited with my optics shuttered. Not a few moments later, I heard a couple paint buckets dropped and the sounds of two mechs sitting down on their asses. "So we got the paint, and it's the nice quick dry stuff." Oh, good. I hate the usual wait for paint to dry. "We settled for black for your base color since it seems to fit you most of the time." Sunstreaker stated. I could hear paint tops being removed. "We're also gonna polish and wax you, because you look like you have _never_ been polished _or_ waxed." He snorted. "Not acceptable for a femme."

"That's because I haven't." I grunted. That was a bit of a sexist comment there, but knowing Sunstreaker, he probably didn't even mean anything close to that. "Do I need to move, or am I good like this?"

"Nope, your fine Princess until we have to do your front anyways." Sideswipe chirped. "So you said we could be creative with the flames, so that's what were gonna do. For the colors themselves, there will be white, blue, green, and purple in various shades."

"Isn't that a little much?" I asked as I heard two large brushes being dipped into two of the equally large cans. "I didn't say it had to be elaborate or anything."

Sunstreaker let out a snort. "I'm going to quote Jazz on this, but do it with style or don't bother doing it." His brush began to stroke along my door wings, which I held still for him.

Sideswipes brush followed Sunstreaker's as it began to gently run over the armor along my legs. "What Sunny means is, if your gonna be painted, at least make it look good." he let out a proud chuckle. "Though with us doing it, it will look more then good. Probably feel good too."

"Your so sure?" I murmured. The brush strokes felt good, but they tickled to a certain degree.

"Of course." Both chimed at the same time. "We were both artists back on Cybertron." Sunstreaker finished.

"Or at least we were when we weren't racing or fighting in the arena." Sideswipe added, albeit gleefully. "Ah those were the days."

I let a laugh rumble in my chest plates and engine so I didn't disturb both of the painting mechs. "Then I guess I'll have to finagle my Papa to ask the government if we can get some canvases in our size so the both of you can paint again. For now, feel free to use me as your canvas."

"Prime will never go for it." Sunstreaker decided. "Do you paint?"

"Haven't had the time to practice in a long." I stated. "Last time I ever drew anything interesting, the punching bag face notwithstanding, was way back when I was still with my biological femme creator." A truth, but my mom had been human. "Besides, I'm more the type to go out and beat the slag out of something for fun, or go for a nice ride off the road." I cracked a half grin. "If I ever have the displeasure of meeting Starscream face to face, I plan on trying to go jet surfing. Cant be too hard, now can it."

Sunstreaker let out a bark of laughter as he finished my wings and moved onto my lower back. "If any aerial Autobots come to earth, we are going to so have to show you Jet Judo. It's a lot like jet surfing, just more damaging to the Jet if you try. It sucks though if you fall. Tends to hurt really bad."

I let out a chuckle. "I can imagine. But, unlike the both of you mechs, I have claws." I let my toe claws slide out slowly so I didn't catch Sideswipes fingers that he was using to tilt my leg. "And this little femme isn't afraid to use them." I slid them back in.

Sideswipe laughed and moved to the other leg. "That's obvious, you little rod ripper. Any new mechs we're gonna have to warn not to tick you off if they want to keep their interfacing equipment."

We had a short laugh, and then we lapsed into a comfortable silence. It was a nice five minutes or so of relaxing. Though it ended up ending when I flinched away from Sunstreaker's brush with a hiss.

His free hand automatically went to an unpainted spot on my arm. "Nightstrider?" Sunstreaker inquired.

Sideswipe had paused in his painting. "Princess?"

"Sorry, sorry." I hissed. I forced myself to unclench my cables that had seized up at the bout of pain from my back. Sunstreaker's brush just happened to hit one of the tender spots on my armor. "Just a tender spot."

"Tender?"

"That's the spot where I was shot at."

"Ah. I'll be gentle then. We both know what those sore spots are like."

Both twins resumed their painting, though Sunstreaker was softer in his painting over the old wound. I did end up flinching anyways, but I simply had them start up again and told them to ignore my occasion flinch otherwise it would never get done. The only really slightly awkward part to the painting was when the guys were painting my pelvic area and my aft. It ticked a lot when they painted my helm. It made me half laugh and half purr, seeing as they painted my antennas too. Though, the buggers thought it funny that they be white with little dark blue tips.

It was some time later that I was fully painted black and now had wicked cool flames going across my frame from the hood to just a bit behind my door wings. The base for the flames had been several shades of white and silver. Then, over lapping the white flames, there were blue flecks and a couple flames, same with the green and purple. In several spots white filtered through, but otherwise the white was covered up by the colored flames. The only spot that was just white was at the nose of my alt mode, and it spanned for maybe three inches before it tapered and got darker as it went into the colors. In my bipedal mode, I had flames across my chassis, my back, my thighs, a couple on my shins, and because the guys thought it would be hilarious, and I really didn't mind, I had flames that branched from my pelvic plattings.

It gave a whole new meaning to the phrase 'fire crotch'.

I was lying in the sand again, fully dried and polished, though now I was getting a waxing by the twins. It honest to god felt like a full body massage. It was heavenly, seeing as they were careful of the sore spot, which also extended to the front part of my chassis if too much pressure is applied, and they were gentle with my sensitive door wings.

"You were right." I murmured.

Both twins inclined their heads slightly. "'Bout what?" they asked. Kind of creepy, their slight twin sync thing they do.

"It does feel good."


	33. Late

(_**IMPORTANT INFORMATION PLEASE READ AND EDUCATE YOUR MIND! **_

_**Okay, so I have one random fact, which I find the most amusing thing ever. I was playing on X-box live on Dark Of The Moon, and while I was on the Autobot side Optimus was the speaker for when we got alerted to things. Well, when we're close to ether being defeated by the Decepticons or actually defeating the Decepticons, Optimus lets us know how many we have left.**_

_**He just says in the most odd way. He says for when we have five left, "Five frags left". Well, technically frag is Cybertronian for the F-word in English, so isn't Optimus technically saying 'Five fucks left'? It cracks me up, and I had to explain to my little cousin why he shouldn't say frag. That was awkward.**_

_**Furthermore, the name game is still open though I don't know if I have the heart to stop GIBTH any time soon and make a sequel, and I also am asking for a few sparkling names for future reference. That's s spoiler, just to let ya'll know.**_

_**Actually, I would like it if you put up a name for a sparkling that you try and put up a description of its coloring, size, gender, etc, and who its creators are.**_

_**Happy naming!**_)

So it's been a peaceful month for the most part. Decepticon attacks have been minimal, we've had like two and one was in central Africa while the other was in Mexico. We have one new arrival; some stuck up spy bot called Mirage. I got to meet Annabelle, which was the most fragging scary thing I have _ever_ had to do concerning humans. Another growth spurt hit me, and now I stand as tall as Elita who happens to be thirteen feet tall. I weigh in at fifteen hundred pounds, or point seven five tons. I've also been spending a fair amount of my spare time with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, who I managed to finagle my adopted father into getting several mech sized ones.

With the Annabelle thing, well lets just say she has a fascination with the joints and armor we have, and as a little munchkin of I cant remember how old, she also has a fascination with climbing. I have never been so afraid that I'd squish something or make it fall off until her. She climbed from my shins to my fucking helmet. When Will came and got her, he found me using my claws to dig into the side of a building and hang there while Annabelle unsuccessfully tried finding a way to get to me. For my explanation? His daughter was the devil in disguise and wouldn't stop until she had all but butchered my patience and my antennas. She liked to pull them. Will had laughed at me, and said he wouldn't stick me with babysitting again.

Ratchet says my spark pains will be more frequent because my spark is healing nicely, and when things heal they never feel good. Other then that, he says I should be with out pains within a couple of months. I can only hope. It's not as if my spark pains actually are frequent, they actually haven't changed or went into a pattern, and they don't hurt a whole lot. Enough to make me stop and press to my chest plates for a minute or two, but I usually just carry on with a dull ache afterwards.

For hanging out with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, well they claim it's both because they want too and because my Papa has decided that I need someone to look after me if the pains get too bad. We usually just chill, but sometimes we race, pull pranks on one another, prank other mechs, poker, truth or dare, BS, and we also randomly do the game 'Boost Okay' and we've played Chubby Bunny once. Really, the last two are kind of a mess. Boost Okay is a game I _never_ should have taught the guys.

The whole Chubby Bunny thing started when I was in the med bay for a jammed antenna. Yep, they get jammed and it hurts like a bitch when they do jam themselves up. Anyways, Ratchet has a bunch of Autobot sized cotton balls for when we're bleeding from a cracked line or something he can have us hold it there to stop the bleeding while he gets his tools. Anyways, the guys were in because both of them managed to pop the tires that make up their feet due to a little over energized fun and were waiting for Ratchet to get a replacement for them. Sunstreaker, when drunk, is very much a cuddle bug while Sideswipe is a giggly goon. Surprising, and not at all surprising at the same time.

I ended up getting harassed into helping them since they both claimed Ratchet would be gone from the bay for a while because they needed special tires. They wanted to play a game they found on the Internet. So a few minutes later I found myself sitting between the two, with Sunstreaker laying half in my lap, with my mouth stuffed impossibly full of giant cotton balls. We had run out of cotton balls by the time Ratchet came back. Did you know that transformers faceplates actually expand because the inside of our mouth is made of softer plating like our innards are? We all learned this. Poor Ratchet, he had taken a look at the open empty drawer that had held the cotton balls and then looked at us with the oddest look on his face. Poor Sideswipe, the look was just too much for the already giggly mech. He broke down laughing, and started coughing out cotton balls. Sideswipes reaction had Sunstreaker giggling next and he ended up sliding off my leg that he was leaning on and landing on the floor. Him hitting the floor sent up a plume of cotton balls that had me start laughing. I ended up opening my mouth and with a small "Flahh~" sound I let my mouthful fall out before I ended up inhaling one.

With the Boost Okay game, that was a little odd. I ended up teaching to them because the two of them were bored. When they had perfected their way of doing it, they managed to get everyone. And I do mean _everyone_. Optimus, who secretly was having fun our bond told me, ended up chasing the two of them into our little safe spot where I spent most of the day waiting for them to need saving, which they did a lot. Our safe spot was in the huge metal rafters of an old hanger that was at the farthest point of the base about half a mile out, far out of the reach of Optimus in his bipedal form unless he pulled a Michael Jordan and jumped like a kangaroo or magically grew claws and climbed up with us. I would hook my toe claws into the beam and hang down to swing the twins up with me. Lots of fun, accept for when my toe claws had unhooked after I swung them up and I ended up landing on Optimus's shoulders as he chased them into the hanger for the third time that day. He had then stolen me away for the rest of the day.

Speaking of the hanger, Sideswipe was trying to get me to come down so he could take me to Ratchet for my check up on the progress of my spark healing. Sunstreaker, having followed his twin, was leaning against the entrance to the hanger and was watching us with unhidden amusement. I was hiding for various reasons, and was in a bit of a mood due to a pain from my spark that had woken me up early this morning.

"Come on, please come down Princess?" Sideswipe asked. "Ratchet will come down here if you don't, and it wont be pretty, so its better if we just go now!"

"Nope." I snorted from my safe spot. I had taken a shit load of old wires and cables, and had made myself a sort of wire meshing nest in the corner of the hanger, and it was connected to the metal beams by heavy welds. I occasionally hide here, and I slept out here a couple times when Optimus and Elita got especially loud and I didn't feel like camping in the med bay. I even had my own tiny energon storage spot in a small attic like area so that we don't have to run back if we get thirsty while we're up here. "He can't get me down anyways. I don't want to go, he said it was healing fine so there's no reason for it." That and my chest plates are sensitive under the outer armor, and it hurts a lot when he presses and prods them even when he's being gentle. And he said that I needed to have one of my systems checked, and that he would need to inject a few things in order to do it. Not a shot in the pits.

"I've called Optimus." Sunstreaker chimed in. "He says he can get you down."

"Aw Sunny! I can get her down myself!" Sideswipe chirped in a false irritated tone.

"You two don't seem to get it do you? I don't want to go." I grunted. I shifted so I was laying with my arms dangling slightly from the edge of the nest so I could see Sideswipe better. "And Papa wont be able to get me if he can't even get the both of you up here."

Sideswipe grumbled and then arched an eyebrow plate at me. "A little over confident aren't you?"

"I could ask you the same thing." I stared at him.

We had a silent staring contest for a while, until the tell tale stomps of my Father approaching made me take my eyes off of Sideswipe so I could see Optimus enter. He walked to where Sideswipe was standing and then looked up at me. I waved down at him. He put his hands on his hips and gave me the look that said that my health needed to be checked so I had best skip too it.

"Sunstreaker has informed me that you are persistent in not going to see Ratchet as scheduled, Strider. Why don't you climb yourself down here so I don't have to fetch you and tell me why you don't want to have your spark checked to make sure it's still healing." Optimus rumbled.

I blinked at him and propped my head up on a hand and relaxed. He can't get me up here. "How about we not and say we did." I chirped. I pulled myself out of my nest and balanced myself along the beams as I walked to the storage spot on the other side of the hanger. I pulled out one that I would occasionally sip at to keep myself comfortably full. I took a sip.

"Nightstrider." Optimus said firmly. I flinched a bit and put my half empty cube back in the storage spot. Oh the serious voice. I turned to look at him, seeing he had followed me and was now peering up at me from a large space between the beams.

"Yes Papa?" I asked.

"You will get down here now." He looked expectantly up at me.

I blinked at him and cast an exasperated look at the Twins, who both stood by the door looking smug now. "You just had to bring my dad into this didn't you?" I glanced back at Optimus. "Nope, I think I'm pretty comfortable up here thanks."

Optimus straightened up farther and seemed to study the beams. "Don't make me come up there little lady."

I snorted and moved to a beam that was a little further away from the storage spot. "Jumps too high for you to make Papa."

Optimus seemed to contemplate something as he looked at the beams.

"Four containers of high grade that he jumps and misses and doesn't get her." Sideswipe said to his twin.

"Four says he jumps, makes it, _and_ gets Nightstrider down." Sunstreaker agreed.

I watched my papa as he crouched down, the cables and what not in his legs bunching up. He rocked slightly on his feet, and then he launched himself forward in a big surge of flame colored metal. Holy shit dude. I almost lost my balance as the beams shook from his impact. His hands latched onto two thick beams and he effortlessly pulled himself up.

"Ho she-it!" I cursed and clambered away.

Optimus hauled himself up until he was kneeling on the beams. The beams themselves creaked ominously, but held up just fine. He leaned forward and reached for me. I leapt away, my own leg cables letting me clear the distance to another beam close to the wall, though I had to pull myself up from there. The hanger vibrated again as Optimus moved to another beam that was closer to where I was.

I _so_ did not want to go to Ratchet. I readied myself, and leapt off the beam and hooked my claws into the wall as Optimus's hand neared where I had been. He gave a grunt, and moved again. I scurried as fast as I could across the wall Spiderman style. When I got to a beam that was far enough away, I shoved myself toward it. I ended up getting a surprise flair of pain from my spark while in mid leap. I ended up almost missing, and I had to awkwardly haul myself up while keeping my legs tucked up so no mechs down further could reach me. It didn't help that Optimus was moved and the beams were shaking so much I felt like I was in a washing machine.

Just as I got myself up and I was prepping to leap to the next beam, I felt the large hand of my father wrap itself around my middle and tug me to his chassis.

"Fuck." I sighed quietly as Optimus began lowering down to the ground. I let my helm fall forward with a clang onto his hand. My own chassis ached and still pulsed with the spark pain. "You win."

"Darn right I do." Optimus grunted as he landed on the ground. "You really shouldn't have challenged me like that. That was easy for a mech my size, Strider." I didn't respond to him. When I didn't respond, he shifted me slightly and then turned me around and asked, "You alright sweetspark?"

"No." I answered shortly as I lifted my head and looked at him. "My spark hurts, and now I have to go get poked and prodded in a soft spot. So no, I'm not okay."

He sighed and frowned at me. "Sweetspark, there is nothing I can do. It's for the best, you do know that."

I knew. I only sighed and nodded before dropping my head back onto his chassis. I was still small enough for him to pick up and hug, and damn it all, with his behemoth-ness, I probably wouldn't ever be too big for him to carry around. After all, he's roughly thirty-five foot to my thirteen feet. Yeah, I'm shit out of luck there.

His hold shifted so he was cradling me with my face pressed to his chassis and so I couldn't see a damn thing. "Go get some energon you two." Optimus addressed the Lamborghini twins. "I'll take her to Ratchet."

"Sure thing boss bot!" Sideswipe chirped. I heard them leaving. "Slag it Sunny, I'll get you your high grade."

"Slag right you will. Don't call me Sunny." Sunstreaker grumped happily.

Optimus trudged me off in the direction of the medical bay. I sighed. "You know Ratchet's gonna beat me senseless for being late right?"


	34. Hide and Seek

(_**I really need names and stuff for Sparklings, so that still open.**_

_**Not much else for me to say, accept this chapter is short, so I am kind of sorry. Just having an off day, and can't really come up with much, so I'm just going with the flow.**_

_**Kind of a sad chapter I think. Not so much a tear jerker, but more as it makes me sad that I just cant belt out three or four thousand words on it…**_)

Ratchet, at my check up, had said that I was healing wonderfully though he had good and bad news. Good news consisted of the fact that my spark would be fully healed in half a human year. Well you know what? That's a hell of a long time to have spark pains… For the bad news, he said that where I had been shot would probably always be a sensitive spot for me and that if I got hit in a certain spot on there, it might ether temporarily paralyze me or make my limbs spazz out from pain. I have to be careful he says.

As it turns out, when Optimus had been leaping around in the rafters after me, he ended up making the whole thing unstable. I haven't gotten around to fixing the damn thing yet, because there is so much structural damage to the beams due to being shook and landed on by an eight point three ton robot. The only spot that doesn't shake an obscenely large amount when you climb on it is my little nest spot. I haven't been up in the rafter much, just a bit to remove our energon supply incase the building collapsed in on it's self.

I also went through another growing spurt. Ratchet says that within a year or so I should be at my maximum height. Honestly, I've nearly doubled my weight now, coming in at twenty five hundred pounds with all my armor on, and standing at fifteen feet tall. Elita isn't happy because I'm taller then her now, and she says I shouldn't be taller then her yet, I should have a few more months at least before I'm anywhere near as tall as her. I guess my body disagrees.

So it's been exactly a month and a half since my check up, and today things have gone to the lowest pits of hell. At first, everything was going great, awesome even. Sarah and Annabelle are up for a visit, and I had been sitting outside with them on one of the dunes next to the base while little Annabelle played in the sand. Sarah had been lounging in the shade provided by thighs and was half reading a book half watching Annabelle in her attempt at making a sand snowman. Due to the fact that the sand wasn't in the slightest bit wet, her attempts failed big time. She ended up trying to dig a sand pit instead.

It was a comfortable moment, and I was completely relaxed. That's where I went wrong. I didn't pay any mind to the whole lot of noise that went on, until I heard the sounds of a large amount of engines, a shit load actually, and the distinct roar of an F22 Raptor fighter jet and a couple other jets I didn't know. I only know the F22's engine because there were a couple that had human pilots on base.

I looked towards the jets engine noise just tin time to see it transform and land on a building, a fleet of strange looking cars trailing behind it. Shit.

'_Decepticons attacking!_' I sent over the public comm. links. I didn't keep my attention on them though; I turned to Sarah and Annabelle, out two civilians on base that needed to be protected.

Sarah was squinting through the sunlight to look at the familiar jet that was Starscream. "Who is that? I don't recognize them. They new?"

"No." I stated. I shifted so I was crouching and gently scooped up Sarah and Annabelle, much to the little girls disapproval. "Those are Decepticons… I need to get you two to a safe place." It was a little difficult to hold Sarah, seeing as she was only a few feet under three times my height, but I dealt with it by using both hands to cup them both against my chassis. You'd think I'd be able to hold them easily, well not really. It's awkward, probably because I never carry humans anywhere, but they aren't heavy.

"Mama where we goin'?" I heard Annabelle ask in a water voice.

"We're gonna go hide from the bad guys, Annie." Sarah replied quietly.

"Like hide and seek?"

"Yeah, a lot like hide and seek."

I started moving for the only place that wasn't being over run with Decepticons. The old hanger where my fort was. I sprinted across the sand as the Autobots and the NEST soldiers spilled from the depths of the base and began beating the shit out of invading Decepticons.

'_Where are Sarah and Annabelle Lennox?_' Ironhide comm. linked me.

'_They're with me, I'm taking them to the safest place I know._' I messaged him back. "_I'll protect them with my life._'

'_We'll try and keep them here alright?_'

"_Yeah._'

It took me a few minutes to reach the hanger because I had to avoid any Decepticons that came across my pathway. I did make it there though, and I can only hope that I made it unseen by the seekers that were flying about like annoying bugs. Huge, metal, annoying bugs with blasters and cannons instead of little biting mandibles.

I settled about in the middle of the hanger and looked down at the humans in my hands. Annabelle was shaking and crying her little eyes out while Sarah held her close to her own body. I gently set them on the ground in front of me so I could defend them better if the need came. "I'll keep you safe." I told her. I set my sensors on alert incase one decided to drive on into the hanger with me.

"But aren't you just a child to them?" Sarah asked me. Her blue eyes were wide as they looked up at me.

I nodded and scanned a quick look with my eyes at the surrounding area. "Teenager more or less. I have growing to do, but I promised Ironhide I'd defend you with my life if need be."

"If they come after us, just run okay? I don't want anyone hurt. So-"

"Shh." I interrupted her. I could hear the sound of a jet approaching. I could hear Sarah silencing Annabelle's crying as much as she could. Please don't land, please don't land, oh please mister nasty Decepticon seeker, don't land on the hanger! Just keep flying!

There was a large thud on top of the hanger, and I could see it dent in and groan at the weight of a seeker that landed. What a fucking lard ass. "Come out, come out, little femme, before I blast this hanger down on top of you and your little fleshlings." The seeker chirped in malicious joy. "Little ol' Thundercracker wont hurt you~ much."

"Not by the hair of my chinny, chin, chin." I quoted the three little pigs quietly.

"You don't have any hair…" little Annabelle chimed so quiet I almost didn't hear her.

He walked to the only door the hanger had and then he reached over and drew the barn style doors shut and locking us in here. As to how he locked us in here, well I watched the metal of the door melt shut at the top. I could hear his blasters going off as he laughed maniacally, and I could only watch helplessly as his blasts began making the old sturdy building shake and wobble.

My armor stood on end at the sound of metal groaning as he began to jump up and down like he was on a fucking trampoline. I saw one of the support beams beginning to give.

The hanger was going to fall… I was going to need my hands for digging myself out if I can, and I would end up squishing Sarah and Annabelle when the roof collapsed. There was a lot of metal up there, seeing as this was built to hold off bombs, which it probably has in the past. It just doesn't hold up to giant alien robots that are hell bent on making the thing fall.

'_Ratchet!'_ I forced a private link. '_Is it safe for humans to be put in our sparkling holds?_'

'_Yes. Our intakes circulate air into the hold any time there is a living thing in there, even if there is no air in the area we are though your body is too young to do that yet._' He answered. '_Why do you ask?_'

I knelt down near the humans. It would probably be a tight fit, but they should both fit inside fairly easily. '_I'm going to put the humans inside my hold to keep them safe._' I shut down the link.

"I'm going to put you some place safe." I stated. I scooped them up gently as the first beam fell, landing only a few feet away. The vibrations sent me to my knees, and I wobbled precariously.

"Where?" Sarah asked.

"Inside me." I stated.

Sarah looked unsure and clutched Annabelle tighter to her. Poor little Annabelle started sobbing louder and harder as another beam fell not to far from us. "Won't we be crushed inside you?"

I shook my head in a negative way. "Not where I'm putting you."

I felt my chest plates open, all three sets of them that included my outer armor and my inner armor, and the thick plattings that made up my protoform chassis plattings. I let my sparkling hold open for the first time and shivered at the air that invaded the space. I brought them closer to it, and slid Sarah in first leaving a squalling Annabelle sitting in my hand trying to get to her mother. She leaned out partially and took Annabelle from my palm.

"Be safe." Sarah murmured as I closed my hold and then slid my chest plates closed. I felt them moving around in there, and I shuddered at the alien feeling. It felt strange, but I'm sure that if I ever became a parent I would have to get used to it. I grunted and surged to my feet.

I charged at the door and rammed myself into it. It didn't budge. Damn heavy-duty sliding doors and not being able to bend outward. I moved backwards until I was in the middle of the room again and then rammed myself into the door once more. I would use the cannons in my shoulders, but shoulder mounted cannons are more or less built to take heads off, not to burst through huge ass metal doors.

As I was starting forward for another ramming at the door, I heard a telltale groan. With a big metal belching sound, the main support system crashed to the ground, pinning my right leg at the knee and forcing me into a half crouched position. My knee joint crunched and sparked. Well, there's no was I'm walking out of here.

"Shit!" I grunted. I reached back to try and shove the damn thing off, but being bigger around then my chassis, heavy as fucking whale, and being attached at an awkward 'H' shape made it pretty much impossible for me to do anything other then just say there. I could detach my armor, but at this moment that would do more harm then good.

Another groan sounded, and I gave a halfhearted whine. I curled myself up in the loosest position I could to keep my weight off my chassis and therefore off my sparkling hold. I half folded my arms so they wouldn't fall, and then I waited with my head down.

I didn't have to wait long.

I heard the humans within me scream as I screeched when the first beam and chunk of metal and whatever they use to make these things strong fell across my door wings and back. My armor crunched into my wires and circuits, severing a couple small energon lines.

It all began raining down on us from there. I was bashed, banged, and buried under the rubble. My body screamed at me, pain washing through my nerve wires that were crushed and cut. My own vocals froze so I couldn't echo the noise my body wanted to make.

I was forced down to my elbows, where I ended up locking my joints so I couldn't fall much further. My chassis brushed the ground, and I could hear and feel the humans panicking and moving around within me.

I finally fell into a short stasis as I felt the building stop falling, as I assume it fell down completely, the laugh of the seeker who was now flying away echoing in my processor.


	35. Where Oh Where Did Three Go?

(_**Thanks everyone for your help~ a major thanks to Demonatron because she's helping make a list of sparkling names and such that will defiantly be put to use sometime in the future of this story. I am still taking names and the such for things though.**_

_**Without further adieu, I give you chapter Thirty-five of GIBTH!**_)

'_Comm. link system: offline, damaged._'

'_Energon: medium low, in need of energon as soon as possible._'

'_Over all system status: damaged, threat of stasis lock imminent. Two hours min. Right side from the knee down is crushed, unusable._'

'_Armor layers: Outer is damaged, crushing into inner and protoform armor. Severed energon lines_.'

I came into awareness to those words scrawling across my eyesight, and I was kind of a bit out of it, disoriented. I also felt something moving within me. I tried to move, and found myself pinned, and each twitch of my cables made my pain receptors scream in pain. My knee was totaled. Though the flash of pain cleared up my processor, and made me realize where I was and the fact we had been down here for an hour and a half. The humans were going to need air soon. I groaned.

"Nightstrider?" I heard Sarah's muffled shout from within my hold. "Nightstrider? What happened? Where are we?" I could hear Annabelle, still crying though it had lessened.

I opened my optics, the slightly dulled blue glow lighting up the narrow space where we were trapped. "Trapped." I rasped. "The building collapsed under the Decepticon. I fell offline for a bit." It was dark, so dark, even with the light of my optics. It was most morbid looking, like a big metal grave. I didn't like it down here. I want to feel the sun on my plates again.

"You can get us out right?" Sarah asked. I could hear the slightest hint of hysteria in her voice.

"I do not know." I answered truthfully. "My right leg is trapped, and since my comm. lines are damaged I cannot contact anyone." I felt her start to pace within me. "Are you both alright? Not hurt, or damaged in any way?"

Optimus and Elita had the connection to me closed; otherwise I would have tried contacting them that way.

I shivered as Sarah came to a stop and ran a hand over the inside of my sparkling hold. "Annabelle's fine, but I think I cracked my elbow bone or something against the floor of your hold. It's getting harder to breathe too." Shit, they just confirmed that I need to get them out of here ASAP. A cracked elbow is fine compared to oxygen asphyxiation. "Wait!" I heard her exclaim. "I have my cell phone on me!" there was silence. "Shoot! It doesn't have any reception down here! Stupid Verison and their inability to make calls inside a metal building!"

I shifted my arms, pushing upward as much as I could. The movement of me straining to lift the metal beam above me crushed my door wings into my back painfully, but otherwise there wasn't much more damage done to my already fucked up beyond recognition back end. The metal above me groaned and shifted ominously, but otherwise did nothing more then send dust showering down onto me. I ended up in the pose of a man proposing to his bride. "If I can get you to the surface…" I trailed off.

"I can make the call." Sarah agreed. She moved over to Annabelle, who was curled against the wall nearest my spark, and took a seat. Smart girl, it would probably be a bumpy ride. Maybe. I don't know.

I sprung my claws out on my hands and took hold of a beam that was directly in front of my face. I shoved up and out with my arms, and have a boost with my legs. The strain of the metal above the beam I was moving made the struts in my leg groan. I shoved harder, the joints and muscle cables pulling and knotting themselves.

With a behemoth groan, the beam gave and fell forward, giving me enough space to slide on my stomach platting onto the slab of what ever the hell that was that was under the beam itself. I went to go do just that, but a tug from my right leg made me stop.

The damn thing was still trapped. I groaned and turned slightly to look at it. The platting was fit for scrap metal now, so much for having two layers naturally for protection seeing as it did jack shit, and I probably could shed it if I wanted to lose part of my protoform metal as well, and maybe even part of my leg.

"Mommy?" I heard little Annabelle ask. "Why's ge'ing har'er to breath?" Shit, I don't have much more choice. I'm just going to rip it out. "I gotta go potty." Oh no, ew, okay, nasty! Gross!

"We're trapped baby girl, but Strider's gonna save us." Sarah murmured to her daughter. "You can hold on until we get out right? Just like mama told you how to?"

"Yes Mommy."

"That's right kiddo, I'm gonna get you and your Mommy to the surface." I rasped. And please, please, please don't poop or pee inside me. "Sarah?"

"Yes?"

I hefted a sigh and put myself at the farthest point I could. "You're gonna want to cover your daughters ears and your own too." There was no way in hell I was gonna be able to be silent as I rip my leg out from between something that has me held tighter then a reticulated python.

"Alright." There was a rustling. "Go for it."

I took as deep a breath as I dared to give them as much oxygen in my hold as I could. Then I threw myself forward and up as much as I could, clawing shrapnel and other nameless things down in my haste to give myself as much room as I could to move. Instead of letting out the string of profanity I wanted to, I slammed my horn down in my twisted scream but not a scream and gritted my teeth as I whined and whirred deep in my throat. My leg armor, burning to high hell as it was, gave slowly, crunching, tearing, ripping, and slipping due to the energon cables that decided to rupture on a sharp piece of armor.

With an actual scream from my throat, my leg tore free though I lost a couple toes to the quick falling beam. When I was free, my sounds shut off from their echoing from within our confined space. I flinched in on myself as the metal stack shifted, covering my chassis so it wouldn't get crushed, though it seemed to be in my favor. The larger beams shifted to where I would have a way to snag an edge and probably wedge myself between them. I took a look at my leg. It was covered in energon from broken cables, it was bare of some spots of armor all the way down to my protoform, and was literally caved in on itself in some places. The knee itself, if we didn't have a kick ass medic on base who could probably fix a knee joint in his sleep, I would say the damn thing was fucked six days from Sunday while hanging from a jungle tree.

I resumed digging with my claws, supporting the structure and myself the best I could with my left leg, which only had a few dents in it. When ever I would have to put weight on my right, it would buckle a bit until I forcibly locked it in that position. The limb would always send searing agony through the joint, and at the moment I wished I had the ability to completely turn off my pain receptors. The best I can do is dim it, and it automatically had dimmed when I onlined.

My claws on my hands were working wonderfully, clawing easily through some parts of the beams and other things. I dug and dug as fast as I could, which was pretty fast for being crippled by limited movement due to my armor pinned within my body and my leg being almost literally torn to shreds, but I was becoming increasingly aware of the fact the humans within me we slowly stilling. Shit. I sped up my digging, wedging myself painfully between fallen rafters. With all my moving and wedging, I ended up tearing away some of my armor plattings and crushing more to me, I even managed to crush my chest plates slightly as I had to wedge them between a couple of narrowly spaced beams.

Honestly it felt like I was digging for a couple hundred feet because it was just that exhausting, when in reality it was really just about sixteen or seventeen feet. Just a little over my height actually. I really need to hit the robot gym, improve my stamina and strength a lot more.

When I was standing in a slightly, more leaning on the wreckage that surrounded me then standing, I heard little Annabelle give a wheezing cough. I gave a heaving groan and pulled heavily on a beam, shoving it down lower until I could stand on it slightly. I shoved both hands up onto a slab of what looked like concrete, and then shoved it up until I could wedge both hands out. Turns out it was more like eighteen feet up, because I had to have a boost to make the hole.

"Yes!" I exclaimed tiredly as that heavenly sunlight streamed through a bit and onto my faceplates. I grinned widely at the warming feeling it had.

I pulled myself up; summoning what strength I had left at the moment, and then with a screech of metal on metal as I lost some of my paint too, I slid the top part of my chassis out, the concrete slab resting on my sore flattened door wings. I inhaled deeply, not having the strength to pull myself completely out just yet. Propping myself up, I sprung my chassis open and let my sparkling hold fly open and flood with cool air and warm sunshine.

It had the desired affect on the two humans in my hold. They started breathing better, coughing and gasping to get more air in. When they seemed to be able to take breathes properly, I gently called out, "Sarah? Annabelle?" I stared at the entrance to my sparkling hold expectantly.

I felt Sarah moving, Annabelle from how she was breathing was now just merely asleep within me. Sarah appeared at the entrance to my hold looking out happily at the sunshine. She had one arm held at an odd angle, and by the purple bruising and yellowish spots forming Sarah was developing a hematoma from the cracked bone. She glanced up at my face. "You did it."

"I did." I agreed. "I told you I would." I gave a wince and put a hand up to my hold to keep them in there as I sunk down just a bit when the rubble shook and settled again, though now I had a support beam resting heavily across my ass. "You should be able to make a call now. I don't want to take you away from the safest place I have incased the rubble shifts like it just did and you fall."

She nodded and took out her phone. Like we had predicted, it had service above the metal rubble and shit. Sarah took a quick look at me, "How badly are you hurt?"

A little dryly, I stated, "Enough that I had to sensor my own language with my car horn." I made as much of a face as I could. "I hurt a lot right now, and I think I'm stuck."

"Shit." Sarah cursed. Well damn, that's the first time I heard her curse. She started dialing someone's number.

I took a glance around. There were severed Decepticon bits everywhere, but no seeker parts. No Autobot was in sight, and I suspect that it was because they were ether holed up in the med bay if it still stood, I cant see that far because of my angle and the dunes, or they were looking for us. I'm betting on a little bit of both.

"Will?" I heard Sarah breathe. "Will? Oh god, Will." She started to tear up at the sound of her husbands voice.

I tuned my hearing in so I could hear what all was being said.

"Sarah, oh my god Sarah!" I heard Will. A little bit louder, he shouted I think, I heard him say, "Ironhide! Ironhide I got Sarah!" There was a rumbling noise. "Are you guys okay? Where are you at?"

I heard Ironhide rumble over the phone before Sarah could answer. "Nightstrider, why the frag aren't you answering comm. links?"

I leaned my head as close as it could go and said loudly so both could hear it, "My communications system is down." I heard more footsteps approaching. Sarah, having started sobbing happily by now, offered the tiny phone to me. I put all my weight on one arm and held the phone in the curve of a claw. "We're not exactly okay, and we're up at the old hanger where I used to go when the twins and I hang out."

I heard a familiar voice of a certain cheerful cherry mech. "Now why are you all the way up there, Princess? We're down here on the other end of the island looking for you~"

"By not exactly okay," I heard Ironhide rumble, "I hope you don't mean that the little femme's are injured."

"Annabelle is fine, just tired. Sarah has fractured her elbow, but is otherwise unharmed." I answered. "But I-"

"Good." the old black behemoth rumbled over the phone. "Then meet us back at the base, you better explain then why they even got hurt when you shouldn't have been fighting."

"I cant." I grumped. "I'm trapped." Fat ass Seeker bitch…

"Shit." I heard Will say. "Alright, Sideswipe or Ironhide, I don't care who, tell Jazz, Ratchet and Sunstreaker that they need to get to the old hanger."

"Done." I heard Ironhide rumble. "We'll be there soon, but Ratchets' team should be there in… ETA forty five seconds. We should be there, ETA a minute." The damn guy was gonna run all the fucking way here? With what, turbo boosts flaming out his giant metal ass?

"Wait Iro-" the phone dial tone hit.

"Here." I gave the phone back to Sarah. "Go to the back of my hold please and keep a hold on Annabelle. I'm gonna try and wiggle out a bit more." Sarah sniffed, but nodded and took the phone with her back to the back area of my hold.

I partially shut the door to my hold, leaving my chest plates open so I could pop the hold open again when I got settled. Planting my hands on the metal scraps and chunks of shit and stuff, I heaved up with my arm struts. I wiggled painfully, completely aware of each piece of metal that rubbed and tugged at my wiring from my confines. I didn't move more then a few inches at most, like six I think enough for part of my stomach to show, my ass still pinned by that beam that just seemed to get heavier by the moment.

I gave a groan and pulled harder, my wings even trying to force the slab of concrete resting along my back off of me. It didn't work. All I succeeded in doing was tiring myself out. I slumped slightly and sighed.

I felt the stack start trembling as the silver blur of Jazz came bounding _through_ one of the dunes I had frequently jumped. Ratchet and Sunstreaker came right up behind him, though they stopped at the edge of the rubble. My Jazz did not. He slowly stepped onto it. The trembling had increase as soon as Jazz stepped on the stack. I shut my sparkling hold, and then slammed my chest plates shut in case the stack shifted.

It did. In fact, the whole space I had occupied before decided to give and filled in, with my legs still in the hole. When I felt my already FUBAR right leg get crushed again and my left one getting pressed, I let out a pained squawk. I felt Sarah moving around worriedly inside my hold, and little Annabelle woke up. She started squalling in such a terrified tone that it damn near tore my spark apart. I let out my own shriek as I got dragged down again by the beam on my ass, so just my chassis and arms were out of the hole once more. The pressure increased on my stomach plattings and back, effectively pinning me more in place then before.

Then as suddenly as it started, it stopped. The whole structure didn't even shake as fifteen seconds or so later when Ironhide came barreling into the clearing, Lennox gripped in his hand safely.

"Nightstrider!" I heard Will yell. "Where's Sarah and Anne?"

The Autobots carefully filed onto the rubble.

When Ratchet reached me with Ironhide, I had to pry my chest plates open because they didn't want to open as an automatic reaction to the pain that racked my fame, though I was kind of getting used to it. I popped open my sparkling chamber and gently pulled out Annabelle and Sarah. I handed them off to Ironhide, who trudged away to go let them off out of the danger zone.

"Now, what hurts Nightstrider?" Ratchet asked. He latched my chest plates back in place.

"To many things to count." I murmured. "My right leg from the knee down is fucked up bad." I pressed my hands to the things under my palms and pushed up, trying to free myself again. All I did was cause myself more pain and make myself whine again.

Ratchet moved the concrete slab off of my back, and I watched as Sunstreaker knelt down in front of me. He slipped his arms under my arms and latched on with a grip that was painfully tight. The remaining mechs started tossing the stuff away from me, and I'm guessing Sunstreaker was just keeping me still so I didn't make the rubble shift or anything. Smart move… I clutched my fingers, now devoid of claws, into Sunstreaker's armor, tightening them occasionally when the rubble would shift in a new way as they lifted debris off of the surrounding area and me.

When they had me freed enough that they could rip me out without making the stack shift again, I felt Sideswipe come and join his twin though he was behind me, straddling the hole.

"On three." Sunstreaker murmured to me.

"One." Sideswipe chirped.

I grunted and prepared myself for the number that followed two. "Two." Sunstreaker said.

There was no three. They just ripped me right out of the rubble; me loosing more plating and I think I lost another toe.

"What the fucking hell happened to three?" I roared. When my roar was done, I ended up in a pathetically whimpering mess. Sideswipe cooed to me softly as him and Sunstreaker carried me down the pile. Sunstreaker purred his engine; in I suppose a way to calm me. It worked slightly, but whenever any of the bots revved their engine or purred it, I would relax automatically. "Hurts…" I whined.

"We know, Princess." Sideswipe hummed to me.

The two of them ended up toting me to the med bay, where I found out where my father was. He was in a medical stasis because somehow one of the Decepticons managed to snag him when he was distracted and ripped his leg off. I have the feeling that it was when the building fell on me. I didn't have the bond closed, so he probably felt it. Elita was in her own little stasis, having glitched out when she thought she was going to loose her sparkmate again.

I was sat on one of the beds, held between the twins so Ratchet could do a temporary patch on my leg and then finish up on Optimus. It hurt, lemme tell you this. It was like having someone poke at your bones after your flesh has been ripped away, and some is still sagging down.

I bit down on my glossa as Ratchet had to remove one of my energon lines, and ended up letting out a whirr of pain anyways. The twins who were keeping me in my seat clicked and whirred back at me in a soothing tone.

I grit my robot teeth and waited for Ratchet to finish his patch up.


	36. Thank You For My World

(_**Sorry for the update being late, but life decided to screw with me a bit. I also got stung today, and now I cant feel my fingers. It hurts, a lot.**_

_**I have so many thankyou's to give, but I have a huge one to give to Demonatron for all the help she has given me on sparkling names and the such.**_

_**Sparkling names and stuff are still open, if you want a sparkling you created to possibly be incorporated into GIBTH.**_

_**Lets hope this chapter is good for you all, seeing as it leaves it open for me to have a little fun next chapter, and send them on their first relationship swirl~**_)

Ratchet had let his medical programming get a little bit ahead of him, and had gone further then to temporarily patch me up. He made sure I wasn't going to bleed out, removed all pieces of armor that was being crushed into my body and through my protoform armor, and had started repairing my crushed leg. He didn't finish it, because he had to get back to my Father, but he got the basic structure back to actually looking somewhat like a leg and not some twisted piece of scrap metal. He also gave me a pain reliever, so I wasn't feeling a thing accept for when I moved my leg or tried to twitch my toes. I wouldn't be able to stand on it for a while yet. Ratchet had also gotten a good portion of the cabling in Optimus's leg reconnected, it was almost done being reconstructed where it was torn off, though the nerve wiring wasn't connected yet.

I sat here on one of the medical beds, I also had been given a small amount of energon to keep me going, reclined backwards around a slight ring of dirt. I was very, very dirty from being buried alive. My armor, dented and missing pieces stuff, was dusty brown, and I had various grits and dirt in my gears and joints. I even felt something under my armor, coating my protoform armor like skin. I was tempted to just send the impulses to the remaining two layers of armor and essentially leave me in my protoform armor. The only thing that was keeping me from doing so was because I had a twin on ether side of me leaning against my medical bed and if I let my armor drop off I would end up essentially naked in front of them and Ratchet. I don't really care if Ratchet sees me nude, seeing as he's the base's medic and all so he's probably seen more naked bots in his lifetime then he could count.

The Lamborghini twins however, were an entirely different pond of piranhas. They weren't medics, they're mech fighters, and ones who my world depicted as bots who want a good long fuck and then to be left alone. That, and they are actually kind of good looking for robotic men. Okay, really good looking even if they are older then dirt literally. I think, in a human equivalent, they'd be about twenty-five or twenty-six. Makes me feel a little bit like a cougar in a way, seeing as a human they would be younger then me.

Okay, talking about attractive mechs is way off topic.

"Is there any way I can rinse off the dirt and stuff that's in my armor and joints?" I asked Ratchet.

Ratchet merely addressed me from where he was working. "No. The only means of washing we have are the wash racks, and you cannot stand, let alone walk, to get yourself there and back."

I gave an irritated whir but went quiet. He was right, I really didn't have any way to get there. You know, we need Autobot wheel chairs. Then we can roll around when we're invalid, and take showers and shit like that.

"But…" Ratchet hummed. "I suppose if you really are set on cleaning up, have the twins take you." My mouth dropped open. He was just letting me go, just like that? Too easy. To the twins next to me, Ratchet ordered, "If you do decide to take her, make sure she gets clean, all the way down to her protoform and check in her gears as well. You are to carry her at all times, she may be set on a sink or counter if both of your hands is needed for something. Be gentle, because any sign of stress to her in any way, and I'll use your parts to replace hers."

Sideswipe stood up with a half grin at me and nodded to Ratchet. "We would never refuse an injured pretty femme the right to cleanse herself of organic matter, right Sunny, Princess?"

Sunstreaker stood slowly and then popped his joints. He sighed, a tired sound, but cracked a half grin anyways. "Don't call me Sunny, but yes. We would never deny a beautiful femme her washing."

I sighed and ran a hand over my optics. "I think I can wait on my washing."

"Nonsense." Ratchet chirped. "Drop your armor."

"What?" I choked out. I gave him a couple blinks and shifted slightly.

He turned his head to look at me as he paused briefly in his work. A look of dry mischief was apparent in his optics. Now what the hell is he planning? "Exactly as I said. Drop your armor here so it doesn't have to be carried back. I want you to remain in your protoform until we get your armor completely recovered and fixed, along with your bodily repairs." He cracked an almost evil grin as his optics dimmed and lit again. The twins made loud sounds of protests, only to be followed by Ratchets humored tone. "Count that, along with having the twins as your personal guardians until your fully recovered, maybe even further in your case, as your punishment for scaring the slag out of us and your reward for saving the femme humans." I wasn't asking for a reward. With that stated, Ratchet gave us a dismissing noise and then returned to his work on my dad's leg.

I hefted a sigh. "Alright." No use arguing with the old bot. I looked to the twins and held up my hands. "Want to give me a hand up so I can drop the armor?" The twins sighed simultaneously, and then moved to they could help me up, one on each side supporting me on my one leg. Kind of sounds like some sort of robot pirate pimp if you ask me.

Sideswipe cast me a naughty half grin again, "Of course Princess. Who do you want to carry you to the showers, and who gets the pleasure of helping you wash?"

I eyed him. "I honestly don't care, so feel free to choose for me."

Sunstreaker chuckled against me. "I'll do the washing, Sideswipe. We both know that you wouldn't get it done half as well."

"I disagree." Sideswipe argued. "I say I can do a better job of washing."

I stopped their little word wager from happening as I dropped my armor, both layers, with a loud clunk. My protoform was thin, thinner then my armored form by several inches maybe even a foot or so, and dirty, instead of a gleaming silver blue color; it was more a dirty brown and sandy yellow color with hints of silver peaking out here and there. The only armor that didn't shed two layers was my door wings, which just shed the outer layer and left the protoform coloring underneath it, and my crotch plating. It only went to the protoform coloring as well. The red of my Autobot symbol on the inside of my thigh stood out proudly against the dirty colors of my frame.

"How about," I interjected before they could start again, "you take turns. There, no argument. You get to do both."

"Still say I'm better." Sideswipe grumped.

Sunstreaker scooped me up gently, settling my dirty protoform against his slightly dirty yellow chassis. Sideswipe moved to where my legs dangled over Sunstreaker's arm, and he gently moved so he could keep my mangled leg from bouncing. Sunstreaker let out a scoff. "In your dreams."

"Equal." I chimed.

We strolled out of the med bay, and started for the wash racks. Let me tell you this, when you have no armor or anything to keep you covered, it tends to get really, really cold. We passed by soldiers; no Autobots thank god, and such in the halls and open expanses. We did get stopped though by Will, Epps, and Ironhide, who had the aforementioned humans on his shoulder.

Sunstreaker sighed again, air rushing in and out of his intakes. "Can we help you?"

"Yeah." Will stated. He was looking up at me as Ironhide lifted him off his shoulders. Ironhide gently set him on my chassis, Sunstreaker made a noise about the 'fleshling' touching me and possibly him, in front of my face. My antenna twitched slightly, and my audio receptors focused on the being in front of me. Will puffed up and then deflated with a sigh. "Thank you." Will stated.

"Your welcome?" I tried.

"Thank you for saving my wife and my daughter. You were under no code to do so." He sighed and then pressed a hand to one of my cheek plates. He then opened his arms, "May I?"

"Go for it." I answered. "And I'm an Autobot. It's my job to protect the innocent and the defenseless."

He gently hugged my face, his slightly stubble covered chin and cheek rubbing against the sensitive plating. His fingers found a hold on some smooth part of my face. "I owe you so much for saving my whole world. I honestly don't know how I could have handled loosing them both."

I exhaled softly and lifted a hand to the mans back and gave him a half hug. Then I pulled him away and looked quietly at him for a moment. "It didn't happen, so there's no use dwelling on what could have been when your living in what has happened." I handed him back to Ironhide.

Will nodded at me. Epps cast me a cheeky grin, one that I returned. "So," his eyes twinkled a bit from what I could see. "I can see your naked and look quite content. Have a little rough, hot, and dirty robo-sex did you?"

"Epps!" I snarked. "I have not!"

"Then where you going, Strider?"

I sighed. "I'm going to take a shower. Ratchet says I have to have these two goons with me though."

Ironhide rumbled a laugh. "Then don't let us stop you, kid." He turned and strolled away with the humans.

I closed my optics with a sigh and rested my face on Sunstreaker's chassis. We started walking again, to the showers.


	37. Rub A Dub Dub, Three Bots In A Tub

(_**Hiya, things are going good, and I had an eventful day. Got stung, and got put in a dunk tank and dunked by a slag load of kids.**_

_**I learned that Autobot swears are hilarious to use around kids, because they cant understand what your saying, so if you hit your ribs on the butt board in a dunk tank and scream 'Frag' then the kids are all like, 'lolwut?'**_

_**As I said, very useful.**_

_**Speaking of dunk tanks, I now have another idea for some fun for the NEST occupants. Now, here is chapter thirty seven.**_)

I was seated in Sideswipe's arms now with him leaning on a counter top, seeing as Sunstreaker was fiddling with the heat dials for the water. Our walk here had been uneventful after meeting up with Ironhide and the two humans, just calm walking to the bath area and a couple bits of chatter here and there. I had the feeling that the twins were communicating through their weird little twin bond thing.

Optimus was waking up; I could feel him through our bond. He was groggily questioning if I was okay, if I was hurt bad and if I needed him to come find me if I was in danger. I sent him that I was a bit damaged but fine, I was safe and with the Lamborghini twins. That seemed to placate him, actually it both trilled him and horrified him in a way, and I felt him drift back into unconsciousness.

I let out a sigh as Sunstreaker made a satisfied noise at the water temperature and then strolled from the room. I arched a metal brow and looked up at Sideswipe's face. "Where's Sunstreaker going?" I asked him.

"He's going to get a chair for you so we can get you clean without one of us constantly having to hold you. Makes it much easier, and then there's no trading back and forth between jobs." Sideswipe answered.

I nodded. "I see."

It was quiet for a moment. "So, what do you think of Sunstreaker?" Sideswipe inquired me. It sounded like honest curiosity, no hidden meanings I could detect.

I thought about it. "Well…" I started. "He's… odd." I answered.

"How so?" Sideswipe drawled and shifted me slightly. "Your lighter without all the armor on, just so you know. I think you should keep it off more."

I rolled my optics slightly. "I am well aware of that, and no chance in hell is that happening." I exhaled. "You really want to know what I think of Sunstreaker?"

He gave me a half amused look. "I wouldn't have asked if I didn't want to know."

"Promise you wont be upset if I accidentally say something offending?"

"I promise you, Princess, that I wont be upset at anything you say."

I took a breath and shifted my hips slightly. "Sunstreaker is a bit of an epiphany, much like you as well. He's nice, though a lot quieter at times. Kind of awkward in a way, like he doesn't really know what to say. But there's also…" I trailed off with a sigh. "I get the feeling that if anyone ever hurt someone close to him, like you, that he would rip them in two with out a second thought. It's kind of foreboding really. You give off the same feeling, its just more hidden. Not so… prominent."

Sideswipe nodded and scooted a bit further up onto the counter so he was holding me in his lap. "He's protective, and a little awkward with the femme's sometimes. Pit, sometimes I am too. Everyone gets like that." He exhaled in a big whoosh that made the steam that was forming around us, swirl in interesting patterns. "Sunstreaker wont hurt you intentionally, I don't think he could even if he wanted to. He doesn't hurt femmes, Decepticon notwithstanding, and neither do I." He cast me a sly grin and a wink. "Don't tell him I said this, but he's a big softy for you, Princess. He told me once that, quote unquote 'That slagging femme has started wheedling her way into my spark like how that nasty green fungus grows in the stuff that humans eat.' That's a complement by the way."

I blinked up at him. "So basically he said I grew on him like mold." I stated.

"Pretty much." Sideswipe chirped.

"Refreshing." I said dryly. My antennas twitched, which drew his optics to them for a moment before they faced my face again.

Sideswipe chuckled a bit. "It is indeed. Your special, as both the daughter of our Prime, but also as someone Sunny actually likes, and can reciprocate his dry humor, and the fact that back when we landed and you defended me and gave Sunstreaker the Decepticon Savage's spark, you also earned his interest and a bit of respect."

I squinted up at him. "You know this how?"

Sideswipe chuckled at me and shifted me so he could tap his temple. "Twin bond. Can't hide anything from your other half." We both laughed a bit as the steam began settling on our armor and slightly loosening the dirt that coated mine.

"Sunstreaker likes me, huh?" It was more of a question you didn't answer, but apparently Sideswipe didn't read the memo.

"Yeah." Sideswipe nodded. "If he didn't, you'd know. He wouldn't be doing anything to help you, and probably would have just let the others get you out of the pile of the old hanger."

"True." I mused.

"I'm always right." Sideswipe chuckled as Sunstreaker slipped into the room. He closed the door with a click, and I angled my head so I could see him. He was carrying a giant metal folding chair, which looked exactly like a scaled up human version. Where the hell did he get that?

"Welcome back." I greeted him with a half wave.

"Good to be back." He mumbled. He moved into the spray and set the chair out. Sideswipe hopped up with a groan from the counter. I gave a grunt as my leg bounced a bit. "Careful." Sunstreaker grunted at Sideswipe, who nodded in a laid back way.

I was gently set so I was sitting with the front of the chair between my legs. I sighed and leaned so I was leaning on it and let my bummed up leg stretch out in front of me so it wasn't in the way. I let my joints relax with a hiss as the hot water cascaded down around us, running dirt and various other shit down in muddy rivulets.

Sunstreaker settled down in front of me, I heard Sideswipe dinging around behind me, sitting in the water in front of my bummed up leg. It, too, was filthy with crusted energon, concrete and metal dust and sand. He shifted so he was sitting cross-legged, and then reached over my shoulder to grab something Sideswipe must have offered up. He pulled back a cleaning rag and a bot sized bottle of car soap that was designed not to leave watermarks on armor. I heard Sideswipe settle down behind me and begin setting up what ever he was dinking with.

"May I?" Sunstreaker gestured to my FUBAR leg. "I'll be gentle, but it needs to get clean. Water alone wont do the job."

I was quiet for a moment, but Sideswipe chimed, "When it comes to washing wounds, Sunny is the best because he's thorough, and also gentler at it then Ratchet is." He ran a soapy rag gently over my back, careful of the wounds and the sensitive plattings on my back from my death.

"Go for it." I answered. "If your gentler then Ratchet, then you got my thanks."

Sunstreaker gave a snort and nodded. He took my leg gently and scooted forward to it rested in his lap. He took the rag, soaped it up, and started at the foot and ankle. "Hatchet is thorough, no doubt about that, but his bedside manners leave something to be desired." Sunstreaker said dryly.

I chuckled deeply. "Don't I know it. I'm in there enough that I'm used to it though." I sighed. "Though that's not necessarily a good thing is it?"

"Not really." Both twins answered.

"You know, its creepy when you do that." I stated.

"Do what?"

"The simultaneous speaking thing." I gave a grunt as Sideswipe ran over a tender spot a little harder then what was comfortable. They both paused in their cleaning. "Don't mind me, keep going. Just a tender spot, that's all." They resumed.

"Well, seeing as we're two halves of the same being, we do tend to share thoughts and say the same things at the same time." Sunstreaker responded. Using a corner of the rag, he picked at a piece of stubborn energon that was on the main structure of my leg. He was gentle though, and didn't cause excessive pain to my limb.

"I wouldn't know." I stated. "I don't have any siblings. Don't really want any to be honest." I chatted.

"Any particular reason why?"

"For one, I'm not one for kids. Human children scare the slag out of me. I'd rather fight a Decepticon any time then to have to deal with kids. Probably will change though if I have a sparkling of my own." I made a face. "Second, sparklings do the strangest things."

Sunstreaker paused for a moment to give me an amused look. "And you would know this _how_?"

I tapped a finger to my temple. "Urges. I was a sparkling not to long ago, and I still get the urges to do strange things. Like now, when everyone is all healed, I say we have a huge ass party with games for both Autobot and humans. I would totally volunteer for being the dunk-e in a dunk tank."

It was a little bit before they gave chuckles. "I'm sure we can put together something like that. I like the dunk tank thing though; I insist though that you take off your armor. That way it wont get scratched every time we dunk you." Sideswipe chirped.

"And for third?" Sunstreaker asked.

I gave my optics a roll. "Any sparkling they have wouldn't be related to me at all, seeing as I'm adopted. I would be expected to help them care for it and love it, when I don't think I could bring my self to accept it. Selfish, I know." I shook my head slightly and sighed as I watched the water run dirty into the drain. "Ratchet said that more then ninety five percent of adopted sparklings never form a bond with their siblings, and are usually outcast and rejected by them. I believe it."

They didn't say anything else. I sighed contently as Sideswipe moved from my back, which was probably fairly clean by now, to my door wings. Honestly, it felt better then one would think having ones door wings washed would feel. He was gentle, very much so, and he scrubbed at all the nasty things that had accumulated there. He also seemed to tease the cables along the part where they connected to my back.

I let out a low purring noise that I made a lot when things felt good or I was pleased. In this case, it was a bit of both. "That feels nice."

The twins chuckled. Sunstreaker finished with my bummed leg, all the way to my ass, and then gently slipped it from his lap and moved to the next. Sideswipe went to the next door wing, while he let out a humored tone, tinted with something I didn't know. "I always wondered if bots with door wings were sensitive on them. Looks like they are." He mused. "You sensitive any where else?"

"Not telling." I responded. I bowed my helm a bit so the spray could hit the back of it, and ended up resting my face on the back of the chair. The water tickled my antenna and my pointed horn like audio receptors.

Sunstreaker finished my other leg, and then moved so he was kneeling in front of me. I closed my eyes as his hands touched my helm. They scrubbed without the rag, and were firm but moderate in pressure. I let loose a purr as he rubbed my antenna to get it clean.

Sunstreaker chuckled, followed by Sideswipe. "Your just like one of those organic creatures, cats I think the humans call them."

I let out a small laugh as his fingers worked around my head. "Well watch out, this kitty has claws."

"And is temporarily crippled." Sideswipe pointed out. "We could run faster then you could drag yourself."

"I'd sic Mudflap and Skids on you. They'd annoy you until your processor fried, then Ratchet would fix you and it would start all over again." I responded. We all let out small chuckles.

We spent the next couple of hours chilling out in the showers and talking, I also ended up being really clean almost to the point of shining, where I found that there was a secret room the twins had built that had an Autobot sized hot spring like thing. They said they thought that they were the only ones who knew where it was. Actually it was more like a hot underground lake. We chilled there a bit too, I got to soak in the water, though I had to sit on one of the guys so I could relax and keep myself in place. Sunstreaker didn't seem to mind me occupying his lap, and Sideswipe seeped content on playing with my toe claws. Our chatting was ruined by Ratchet, who literally came a knocking on the door. Looks like he knew about it too.

He dragged us back to the med bay, where my father was fully repaired, though he had to rest so the replacements would set and no welds would break, and my adopted mother was still sleeping. Ratchet said she was resting and probably just keeping herself calm with Optimus nearby. Optimus, seeing me carried in between Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, just arched a metal plated brow. Ratchet must have comm. linked him something, because his eyes had dimmed briefly, and then brightened. He had locked up, and visibly puffed, before deflating and acting like nothing happened. I had rolled my eyes and called him weird. He called me troublesome, and said that I was bound to make him offline prematurely from worry with my seemingly danger prone tendencies. I told him that he was no better.

I was set on the big metal bed, and my leg was set so Ratchet could work on it later. As Ratchet checked on Optimus's welds to see how they were holding, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe leaned against the bed and leaned down close to my face.

Pulling the twin sync thing again, they said, "We'll work on the party, but when your better, will you go for a drive around the island with us?"

I blinked and nodded. "Sure." I chirped. "Love to."

Sideswipe grinned at me. "Wonderful!" he chirped happily.

"Great." Sunstreaker half grinned at me in his usual way.

"Now shoo!" Ratchet snapped from next to Optimus. Both mechs were watching us, one with amusement and papa with something I never saw on him before. "I want you to let me get to work on her so she can get her aft out of my med bay!"

The twins moved towards the door, Sideswipe turned slightly and called, "We'll visit in the morning!" and then they left, leaving Ratchet to take care of my wounds.

Ratchet sighed and strolled to me from next to Optimus. Papa heaved a sigh and lay down to recharge. Ratchet gathered his things and gave me an injection to put me completely out of it. It took a bit to take hold, so I got to see him pull out parts that would be going into my leg and set them out in a row.

When I felt the drug snag me, I got Ratchets attention. "Hey Ratchet?"

"What now?"

"Rub a dub dub, three bots in a hot tub." And then I was out.


	38. Cotton Giggles

(_**Almost to forty chapters! Whoot! I am absolutely ecstatic because the twins are starting to show interest in Nightstrider!**_

_**Also, I had a scare with a hobo spider, and am now terrified to go to sleep for fear of a two and a half to three inch spider biting me in my sleep…**_

_**Review if you got the time, favorite it, or alert add it if you want, I love all three.**_

_**Also, I'm experimenting a bit with the page break things and stuff, so things might be a bit odd on the chapter. If it is, I'll just edit it and repost it if it's a major problem.**_

_**Without further adieu, I give you chapter thirty-eight!**_)

I was in the med bay for about a week, seeing as I had to have my leg from the knee down almost completely rebuilt and replaced, and then I had to have the joint itself fixed, and time to let the repairs set and heal to what they were before. I've been out of the med bay for a couple days, and I'm planned to go on the drive with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe later tomorrow. My armor was also almost completely replaced, both sets of it. Ironhide had come and fetched it to remake it for me, and got the twins to paint it before I saw it. Funny fraggers once again gave me flaming crotch plattings.

Elita had fussed over Optimus and I when she had awoken. Ratchet, god bless his spark, had shoed her away from me and had her dote on Optimus, who seemed slightly amused by the whole ordeal. After all, I had the twins doting on me, by Ratchets order and I think partially because they wanted too. I was never bored, least to say that.

We played another round of chubby bunny the day before Optimus got out which was a day before I did, and even got Optimus in on it. Loads of fun, and the whole thing started on two words.

"I'm board." I had sighed. By then, I was fully outfitted in my flaming armor and was just on bed rest.

The twins had been keeping me company, and we had played so many card games that it wasn't even funny. I, however, had won a full body wax from the twins, and also lost so that if we did do a little party and a little 'dunk the Autobot' that I had to go in my protoform for both amusement and so I didn't scratch my paint. Sunstreaker is a bit OCD when it comes to paint jobs that he's done.

"Poker?" Sunstreaker offered. He was lounged across the foot of my bed, I had been given the big one because at least one of the twins was always with me, and both seemed content on staying here at night so they could 'tend' to me if I needed anything. Honestly, they just did it so they could chat at me while I was trying to sleep. They even made a game out of it; see who could annoy the sleepy femme until she threw something at you. Surprisingly, Sunstreaker can be fucking _annoying_ when he wants to be.

"Nah." Sideswipe groaned from his sprawled position on the floor. He was down there because he had been the one to annoy me awake this morning and I had Sunstreaker kick him off the bed. He did so, in the literal sense. "Played that too much."

"Go fish?" I offered.

Sunstreaker snorted. "If I have to play that game again, I _will_ beat someone's aft and paint them an obnoxious color. Like pink."

I prodded his side of his stomach with my toe, "That a promise?"

"You bet."

"Cubby bunny!" Sideswipe chirped.

I shifted so I could look over the edge of the bed, draping myself like how Sunstreaker was. I arched an eyebrow plate at him. "Pardon?"

"Lets play chubby bunny!" Sideswipe insisted. He scrabbled up and went to fetch the cotton balls without waiting for our response.

Sunstreaker shifted and rolled so he was facing me. "Looks like our boredom will be no more." He shifted again so he was sitting up.

I followed his position. "Yeah." I agreed.

I heard feet approaching, and looked up to see my dad walking towards us, stretching his legs. Looks like Elita was off doing something, probably off getting a couple cubes of energon. I waved. "Hi papa!"

Optimus gave me a half smile, and a slight squinted look to Sunstreaker, and then came and sat down next to me in a chair that Sideswipe had been too lazy to sit himself in. He reached out and ran a hand over my helm. "Good morning sweetspark. What are you two up too?"

"Playing a game of chubby bunny. Sideswipes fetching the cotton balls now." I answered and purred when his hand touched my antennas.

Optimus withdrew his hand to settle in on the armrest on the chair. "Chubby bunny?" he rumbled. "What an odd name. What are the cotton balls used for?"

"The whole game pretty much is to see who can shove the most cotton balls in their mouth and still say chubby bunny, or what ever is decided to say without laughing or swallowing the cotton balls." Sunstreaker summarized.

There was a loud bang from where ever Sideswipe had gone to fetch cotton balls, and it drew our gazes for a moment. I glanced back to Optimus. "You want to play with us papa?"

Optimus shook his head with a laugh. "I think you three would be at a disadvantage if I played, seeing as I am much larger then you."

I arched a brow with a half smirk. "Size doesn't matter, dad, it's all in how you use your mouth. And if you don't start laughing at the others."

"Yeah boss bot!" Sideswipe said as he strolled into the room with a shit load of cotton balls. "If it makes you feel better, you can take two for every one we take." Sideswipe snagged a tool table and tugged it over. He dropped his load onto the table, and then snagged a bag. He tossed us three a bag each.

"Alright." Optimus agreed. "Two for every one you young bots take."

"Gotcha." I gave him a thumbs up. I looked at the twins as Sideswipe settled on the other side of me. "So, what do we want to say this time?"

"How about we just stick with chubby bunny?"

"Sure." Sideswipe agreed.

"You first papa!" I chirped.

He nodded and opened the bag. Optimus popped two into his mouth, giving a slight grimace at the fuzzy texture. "Chubby bunny." He stated with out a slur. We all popped our first ones and didn't slur.

"Double or nothing round!" Sunstreaker declared. Double or nothing is when you double your intake amount for one round.

Optimus popped four, leaving himself with six total in his mouth. They were all on one side of his mouth, I could tell because there was just the slightest bulge where the cotton balls were. "Chubby bunny."

"Chubby bunny."

"Chubby bunny."

"Chubby bunny."

We went for several more rounds, and ended up with several bags in out mouths. Optimus shoved two more in, leaving him with twenty-eight total. "Shubbfy Fubby." He declared, his cheek plates bulging in a way that you would never be able to imagine Optimus doing.

I covered my mouth with a snort and giggled. Honestly, I don't think I'll ever know how he did it with a metal mouth, but Optimus stuck out his glossa and blew a sloppy raspberry at me. As Sideswipe was working another one into his mouth, he caught sight of what Optimus did. The cotton balls sprayed from his mouth as he started laughing his ass off.

I jammed another one into my mouth. "Mrphy mubmies."

"Gubby mubbies." Sunstreaker said after shoving another in his mouth. I started a muffled giggle, and Sideswipe poked Sunstreaker in the side cables. It made Sunstreaker jump, and a single cotton ball to fall out.

"Fuu flospe!" I said. "Phims arr ot!" I giggled again, almost snorting a cotton ball in the process.

"Fewly, awh fifnt mo dat." Optimus teased me and shoved another couple in his mouth. "Bunki bumkies." He said.

I tried to fit another one in, but it wouldn't fit all the way. It poked out between my metal lips. "Mmrph mmfie." I gave a laugh. I had lost, because I couldn't even get one word out correct.

Optimus gave a laugh and Sideswipe declared, "Boss Bot wins!"

"Flahh~"

And that's how that went. Currently, as it's earlier then I usually wake up; I am curled up on the bed between my adopted parents. I was cuddled close to Optimus, with pressed against my other side. She shifted, her arm rubbing along my back plattings in a painful way. I winced and shied away, pressing myself further into my dad. He grumbled something with a sigh and then rolled over, taking me with him. Sometimes transformers move in their sleep. It's weird how they do that. I was given the chance to escape, and I simply slipped from his grasp and onto my feet. He gave an impressive snort like noise, flipped back over, wiggled a bit, and then spooned to Elita.

I rolled my eyes and snuck from the room. I trudged down the hall, intent on getting a little bit of energon from Optimus's office because I was too lazy to walk all the way to the kitchen. He kept a bit more there now, because I often would come and snag some from him when I was too lazy to make the walk.

I opened the door and took a few steps inside before I suddenly found myself hanging upside down from my ankles. I bobbed a bit and then I growled. There was a snickering from under the desk.

"Ey, Flap, did we's get tha boss bot?" I heard Skids ask.

Mudflap poked his head out and then face palmed. "Naw Skids, we's got tha Lil Mama. Should we let 'er down?"

They both crawled out and looked at me contemplating. I scowled my tired scowl. "Let me down, or I'll make you conjoined twins, so you'll have to be the ice-cream truck again." I threatened.

"Naw Flapper, she's threaten'in us. I says we lets 'er hang, but we's gotta tie 'er hands up and gag 'er too." Not so long story short, I ended up hanging, gagged, and bound so I couldn't even get myself out with my claws.

I prodded the bond with Optimus constantly, but he was a deep sleeper early in the mornings. He didn't wake up, until exactly six in the morning. I let my annoyance trickle out of the bond as he approached his office.

He opened the door and stepped in, only to come face to face with me. Yep, I was hung that high up. He blinked groggily at me. "Twins?"

"Mrrph." I nodded. "Mhhlp mmm dmmm plmmm?"

"What?" Optimus sighed, and straightened up as far as he could go and snagged me around the shins. He pulled me down far enough that he could snap the cable that was holding me. Cradling me gently, he set me down and then worked on removing the cables and gag.

When I was free, I gave him a hug, which he returned. "Thanks papa, now since you're here, I'm gonna chill with you today." I stated. I slid over to the energon dispenser thing and got us a couple cubes, two for him and one for me. "I have revenge to plot."

Optimus just gave me a groggy blink, and settled into his chair to wake up with some energon and then start on what ever he works on in here. He's defiantly not a morning bot sometimes, but he's also unbelievably adorable when he's sleepy.


	39. Knowledge To The Highest Grade

(_**READ PLEASE:**_

_**Hello my loyal readers, and welcome to chapter thirty-nine. I don't have much else to say, accept that reviews, alerts, and favorites are welcome at any time.**_

_**I have a question for you; if I were to have Prowl come soon, what relationship would you all like him to have with Jazz? I'm thinking that they might be a couple, but I'll take suggestions.**_

_**Also, things are going to start moving fairly quickly, seeing as I cannot see the twins as patient in a relationship. Honestly, I cant see Nightstrider as patient ether, but we'll see.**_

_**If you have a question, review and I'll try my best to answer it.**_)

So I managed to get my revenge on the Chevy twins. While they were in recharge, I got Sunstreaker to help paint them bright pink with obscene things doodled along their paint jobs. Sideswipe was awesome; he managed to rewire their voice boxes to sound like females. Their reaction in the morning was hilarious; they came running into the middle of the main hanger, screeching total nonsense, and across their chassis was the words 'Paybacks a bitch'. Papa had scolded us lightly, casting the two small he-she's a half amused and half pitied glance.

Optimus had decided this morning, after a long talk with Ratchet, that Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are going to be my guards until further notice. Their reasoning? I was too prone to ending up alone when danger strikes, AKA accident prone, and seeing as I'm already close to the twins, they were the logical choice. I couldn't argue with them, so it was decided because neither of the three of us minded much.

More bots were supposed to arrive in a couple weeks. They once again didn't know who was supposed to land, only that there was going to be two Autobots landing with no Decepticons following and the site where they were going to be landing. They were landing in my home state, Oregon, and were supposed to land near where our ranch was, and really close to where my mothers' grave had been. Optimus had said that he was sending only three bots to rendezvous with the two falling bots. Sunstreaker was going to go, Sideswipe as well, and he said that I should go in case one of the bots was hurt. I have one of Ratchets simple field medical packs in my subspace so I can repair anything needed. Honestly, I'm kind of torn between being excited to go to my old home, and being terrified to find out whether or not I had existed in this realm or not.

We were driving along the road that leads to the end of the island, near where the cave that I found sits, as we had been for the last hour or so. It was cool outside for once, at about the twilight hour, and roughly seventy-five degrees. It felt good to be in cooler weather after this constant heat. I was driving slightly behind the twins, letting them lead me wherever they wanted too. We rounded a couple corners, before the twins slipped off the road and headed towards the direction of the cave. I followed, letting my shocks take any and most stress caused by the bumping on the terrene.

:Where we going?: I broadcasted to the Lamborghini's in front of me.

:To some place nice.: Sunstreaker responded.

:Yep! You'll just have to wait and see~: Sideswipe added in his usual cheerful mood.

I rumbled with a slight laugh. Of course they wouldn't tell me. I flashed my headlights at them, letting them know I was going to wait, though patiently. It took us a bit because the twins for once weren't in a rush, but we did finally make it to the cliff edge where it dropped down to the sandy beach, which seemed bigger somehow, below. I leaned over the cliff edge as the twins had one of their silent twin bond speaking moments. The water had indeed receded, but that was because a bit of the cove wall had fallen and had made what could have passed for a small lagoon.

Sideswipe scooped me up as Sunstreaker leapt down into the cove with a thump. "Princess's shouldn't jump off edges without someone to catch them." He grinned at me.

I eyed him warily, and then blinked. "I can jump you know. I'm not gonna break."

"Ratchet disagrees!" Sunstreaker called up. "He claims that we need to make sure you don't strain your knee joint for a few more days." I looked down to see him standing with his arms out in the catching position. His mouth was set in a half smirk, as per usual, and he had a small glint of something in his optics.

"Bombs away!" Sideswipe called gleefully as he dropped me over the edge. I gave a whoop of laughter as I fell.

I landed with an oomph in Sunstreaker's arms, and he set me down a few seconds later. Sideswipe landed a little bit away from us, and chuckled as he stood. I ruffled my armor up a bit, and then let it settle comfortably back in place. "That was awesome!" I said happily.

"Good, good." Sideswipe agreed. We transformed and they lead me into the cave, where in we promptly transformed back. When I was back in my robot form, I found Sideswipes hands covering my optics, and Sunstreaker tugging me along by my forearm.

I went to ask what they were up to, when Sideswipe slipped a pinky finger over my lip plates, effectively shutting my mouth. "It's a surprise." He murmured to me.

They lead me on for quite a ways, and when we finally stopped and I was allowed to see again, my eyes automatically scanned where we were. The twins had lead me to a large underground cavern, with a large hole at the top that let moon light in and a good view of the stars. It was surrounded by the same glowing moss at the edges, but towards the center was a large spot of sand that almost looked to be glowing white with the moon light.

"It's beautiful." I breathed. I walked towards the sand, and slipped my feet into it. I walked to the center and looked up at the moon and stars. "Wonderful view of the stars." I commented. I looked to the twins. "Thank you for bringing me here."

Sunstreaker was fiddling with something in his subspace, so Sideswipe approached. He slipped up beside me and quirked the corner of his mouth plates up. "It is beautiful indeed, but that why we brought you here, it reflects you well." He looked behind him. "You find it Sunny?"

"You're a flirt." I stated and rolled my optics. "A sweet flirt, but still a flirt nonetheless."

Sideswipe winked at me. "Never said I wasn't, Princess."

Sunstreaker appeared at my other side, holding up a couple really large things of energon. "Don't call me Sunny, but yes, I got it." He handed me one, and passed another to Sideswipe.

We all three took a seat, and I sipped at the energon. It tasted funny… I clicked curiously. "This isn't normal energon." I stated.

Sunstreaker smirked at me and took a mouthful. "Observant aren't we? No, its not normal energon."

I sniffed at it. "Then what is it?"

"A mild High grade." Sideswipe chirped. He took a mouthful in the most exuberant manor. "This should be your first taste of high grade, yes? Then drink up, we promise not to tell Optimus if you dont!"

I shook my head and gave an airy laugh. "Alright." I sighed and took a mouthful.

High grade is odd. It's smoother and richer then normal energon, it glides down your throat smoothly, leaving a slight burn afterwards, and settling in your tank with a warming sensation. It's a lot like a vodka tequila shot. I've done lots of those as a human. High grade doesn't actually taste bad, it actually tastes really good.

I drank it at a regular pace while sitting in a comfortable silence with my two guards. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker were quick to drain their first few cubes; Sunstreaker apparently has a shit load in his subspace, but slowed as soon as they started to feel the buzz. They're probably used to the stuff, so it takes longer to get them drunk. I started feeling the buzz not to long after I started on my second cube. I was on my third now.

"So, Princess." Sideswipe drawled. "What do you think our little drive?"

I took a drink. "I like it." I stated. I glanced in his direction and took another drink. He blinked at me with a tipsy grin.

"Think you could stand to go on more drives with us?" Sunstreaker asked, and I let my eyes draw to him. He scooted closer a little bit and pulled out another cube, seeing as he had just drained another one.

I nodded. "Totally." I took another drink

Sunstreaker swirled so he was laying half across my lap, and it nearly knocked me off balance. I ended up leaning on Sideswipe, who gave me a tipsy wink. Sunstreaker took a drink of his high grade, and then addressed me. "What about a date with us?"

I took another drink and contemplated. "Couldn't hurt, so yeah, I can see that happening." I squinted at him though, as he rumbled excitedly and snuggled into my lap. Sunstreaker the drunken snuggler. "But ain't I a bit too young for you, Sunstreaker, and what do you mean by 'Us'?"

"Two parts of the same spark." Sideswipe explained. "Can't have one without the other." I blinked up at him. Okay… "Basically you're stuck with the both of us if we date or court you. Most femme's find the idea repulsive, to possibly have two spark mates."

I snorted. "Well I happen to be open minded."

"Your fine with the idea?" Sunstreaker asked.

"Yep." I drawled. "Anyone who thinks other wise can just keep their opinions to themselves."

Sideswipe rumbled a bit. "Your one of few who don't mind."

"I see." I closed my eyes and took a drink. "So is that just one half that's asking for a date, or does the other half have interest as well?"

"We're both interested." Sideswipe answered. "I'll be blunt, so don't be offended or scared off please." I nodded at him. Not much would offend me with these two. "We both find you incredibly sexy as the humans put it, though your alt mode could be a little speedier, and we aren't patient."

"Oh?" I drawled."

"We probably wont take things slow, that isn't our motto, but just a fair warning. Expect the unexpected." Sunstreaker added.

I let out a puff of air. Okay, so two non-patient mechs are interested in me. Okay. I can handle that. Shouldn't be too hard. Might even be good for me, seeing as I never had a long human relationship. "I always expect the unexpected with you two. If there was a hand book on dealing with twins, that would probably by the first thing you would read." I stated wryly.

"As for the age thing, well age is just a number. It's all in maturity and how you feel. Like with Ironhide and Chromia. Ironhide is much older then Chromia, and yet they fit together fine." Sunstreaker answered my previous question. "Also depends on if your spark chooses who ever you like."

"How so?"

"Say my processor liked someone, but my spark did not. There would be no way it would work out."

I nodded again and drained my cube. "So what is it for you?"

Sunstreaker sat up just long enough to snag another cube out of his subspace and hand it to me. Then he plopped right back down. "We're still figuring it out."

"Ah." I took a small sip of the fresh cube, not enough to really change the energon level in the cube. I did feel something, deep with in my spark. I just don't know what it is yet.

There was a comfortable silence for a bit. Though with Sideswipe, it didn't last long. "You know, for your first time drinking, you hold your high grade well." He commented. He settled his arm slightly behind me, and I leaned back on it. He didn't seem to mind, he continued to drink his energon without commenting.

I gave a halfhearted shrug. "Meh, I'm just myself. One odd package all rolled into one odd femme."

Sunstreaker shifted. "True, true. But we like you odd. It fits you." Sunstreaker, cuddly, and sweet when drunk.

"How sweet." I chirped. I eyed the almost full cube. "I think this will be my last one for now, so how about we have a contest to see who can down an almost full cube the fastest?"

Sunstreaker sat up with a groan, finishing his cube and then getting another for himself and Sideswipe. He handed Sideswipe his, and then settled back so he was leaning on me, and in turn making me push against Sideswipe. Cuddly little bastard, isn't he?

"Sure, why not. We'll be here all night though. No way we're driving home." Sunstreaker agreed.

"Yeah." Sideswipe agreed. "So, what does the winner get?"

I blinked slowly. "How about who ever wins gets to request anything within reason from one of the losers."

The twins shared a look over my head. "Alright." They agreed.

We had a small countdown, and then we chugged. I ended up losing by a few drinks. The twins tied, big surprise. I slid back onto my back with a sigh.

"Alright, since I'm the only loser, what can I do for the two of you?" I asked.

"Simple." They chimed. They lay back with me, though they were careful not to lie on me, and then they rolled onto their sides and looked at me. "Let us do what the humans call cuddling."

I blinked, and nodded. "Alright." I relented.

It was a bit awkward because they ended up pretty much spooning to me, me facing Sunstreaker and Sideswipe pressed behind me. However, it wasn't awkward for them in the slightest, I could tell with how they were relaxed. It's moments like these that remind me that I'm different from them. They don't seem to be bothered by what is awkward for humans, and because I was once human, and still am by my mind, I do feel slightly bothered by things like this.

I sighed and closed my optics. Resigning myself to snoozing with them, and pressed my head to Sunstreaker's throat. I set myself into recharge to hopefully sleep off the high grade.


	40. Fathers Intuition

(_**SLIGHTLY IMORTANT DO READ PLEASE:**_

_**Sorry the chapters really short, but it kind of has to be in order for me to move things along. I plan on having the next chapter be longer, but it truly is how it all turns out, yah know what I mean?**_

_**OMG Chapter 40! Whoot!**_

_**Also, updates may end up getting farther between, or shorter chapters, because school is approaching quickly. I have about two weeks, maybe, until I am forced to go to bed at nine and wake up at five thirty. The weekends however, should have fairly good updates as long as my mother doesn't hog the computer.**_

_**Well, we get to see a little bit of protective and stressed daddy going on ^_^, so yup. Things, while shorter then normal, are going to be interesting.**_

_**Remember, my dear readers, even old robots have stress points.**_)

I awoke with a most horrible processor ache that I'd ever had, and the sun streaming down angrily on me. I gave a grunt, my mind still a bit hazy from last night's energon, and rolled myself over and half draped myself over Sideswipe. I gave a snort, and was almost on my way back to dream land when the red mech beneath me rumbled a laugh.

"Good morning Princess, have a good recharge?" Sideswipe chirped.

"Yes, until the sun woke me up." I groaned. I rolled over again and buried my face into Sunstreaker's softer side plates. I sighed. "Mmh. What time is it?"

"Ten in the morning human time." Sunstreaker answered.

"Slag." I hauled myself up with a sigh and pressed my fingers to the spot where my temples would be. "Now I have a head ache…" I grumped.

A bottle was passed into my empty hand. I moved my other hand to look at it. It was some sort of big brown bottle. I arched an eyebrow plate. " What's this?"

"It'll help." Sideswipe said. "Tastes gross though."

"Always does…" I muttered. I hefted a sigh and took a swig. It burned almost painfully down my throat, and it made me make a coughing sound though I could already feel it working. "Bleh." I stuck my glossa out and handed the bottle back to Sideswipe.

He subspaced it with a half smirk, "You'll get used to it Princess, especially if you plan on doing this more often." Both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker stood up then, and I followed suit.

"Boss bots looking for us." Sunstreaker stated. He lead us quickly back out of the tunnels, and played toss the femme with Sideswipe to get me up the side of the drop off. As we were folding back down into our alternate modes, he added, "He isn't happy."

:Great.: I grinded my gears and we took off.

:Yeah, we don't know what he's so upset about though." Sideswipe said.

I hefted a sigh and shifted into four-wheel drive. :I have a feeling I know what it's about. I'll go ahead and see what he wants. If I were you, I'd avoid him today if you can.: I sped my self up, passing the twins easily on the uneven terrene. I drifted my tail end around a large dune that I don't feel like jumping, and then pressed on.

:If you need help, don't hesitate to comm. link us. We'll provide an escape diversion." The twins stated together. I felt their comm. signals moving down an identified road.

I sighed. :Thanks guys.:

It didn't take long to find Optimus. He was waiting for me when I came rolling into the hangar, which was actually devoid of any living things save Optimus himself. He had his arms crossed and was giving me _the look_. The look that said that I most likely did something I shouldn't have, and that he was pissed, dead tired, and there was something bothering him further down. I transformed and shifted so I was leaning with my hips tilted and my hands propped up on them. Waggling my wings and antenna, I stared at him for a moment.

"Hi papa." I greeted.

His toe started tapping. "Good morning Nightstrider." He said in a seemingly calm voice. Ooh, the full name. Deep, deep shit now… "Now, why don't you tell me why you didn't come back to the base last night and why several cubes of high grade went missing? And do tell why I see a couple small flecks of yellow and red paint along your armor, and why your arms are sandy?"

I blinked at him. "How did you…"

"Fathers intuition." He snorted. "Now answer me." He stared back at me, his optics shining with a slight glint to them.

I twitched my antenna warily. "Well, the twins wanted to show me this really cool place down by the cliffs, and tossed me from twin to twin in order for us to get down faster. That's how the paint thing happened." I think that's the truth. I don't really know.

He nodded and motioned that I was to continue.

"High grade. Um… well I don't know about that." Half truth. I drank some of it, and the twins are the ones who took it. "As for the sandy armor thing and why we didn't come home… well we fell asleep looking at the stars." I fell asleep looking at a bright yellow sunflower.

"Lies." Optimus clicked condescendingly. He closed the distance between us and leaned down so he was looking directly into my eyes.

My audio receptors picked up on a loud roar. "My paint!" that came from somewhere outside.

He gave me a disproving look. "I think the tossing thing is true, seeing as Sunstreaker just found his. You do know about the high grade, or at least a little bit, you did fall asleep in the sand but not because you were watching the stars." I fidgeted. "Now, pray tell, why do you lie to me?"

I blinked. How the fuck am I supposed to reply to that? I shrugged slightly. "I don't lie." I stated. I just mess with the truth. There's a difference.

"Oh?" He squinted at me slightly. "Then tell me I'm wrong in saying that you and the twins got over energized on high grade, and ended up crashing in the sands lying together." He stood up and gave me his stern leader face. I bristled with each and every thing he said. It was offending to me, just a whole lot. Also, the way he described the twins was just slightly shameful. "Tell me that your guardians didn't slack off, give an underage femme high grade and then _sleep_ with that same underage femme, and put you in danger? Hm? Tell me this, did you even think? Did you know that this also puts me in doubt of my own daughter's judgment? Should I even send you to greet the bots, or are you going to go gallivanting with the twins?"

"Every one makes mistakes!" I snapped at him. "Just because the twins were expressing interest in me doesn't mean that I'm irresponsible and that I'm going to hop in a closet or corner and interface every chance I get!" I snarked. I straightened and pulled out my old military stance from being human. I leveled my chin, and narrowed my eyes. "I cannot believe that you think I slept with the twins. I wont let any mech at me unless he's my spark mate." I stated coolly.

"How am I supposed to be leave that when you lied to me? Hmm?" he stood up fully and crossed his arms again. Optimus gave off an aura that stated he was pissed, and was ready to take it out on something. "I don't approve of the twins fancying you." He stated. "I do not want you going on any more '_drives_' with them."

"Believe what ever the fuck you want." I rumbled. I shortened my stare into a glare. "Do not try and tell me who I see and who I do not." I stated. "We aren't even officially seeing each other. Drives don't count."

"I am your father, I _can and will_ tell you who you may see." He rumbled.

I felt myself puffing up. "Yeah well, see if I fragging listen to you!"

"I don't want you to be another conquest!" Optimus snarled. He started pacing. And he began to rant in Cybertronian. I hadn't a clue what the fuck he was saying, only it didn't sound good. When he ended his raving, which took long enough that I had cooled off my own temperament enough to where I wasn't likely to try and jump him and throttle him, he pressed a hand to his faceplates with a long loud sigh.

I tapped my toe and sighed. "Are you done venting yet?" he didn't respond. "Alright then, tell me what's bothering you."

"I will tell you after the new arrivals are here." He stated quietly. Optimus moved slowly, and then went and pulled me into a hug. I stiffened, and did not return it. "I am sorry, sweetspark. I shouldn't have yelled, or said what I said." I said nothing this time. "I should not have jumped to conclusions like that. It was wrong of me. Don't get me wrong though, I do not approve of my little girl being interested in mechs yet." He pulled away and held a palm to my head. "Your too young, I say, but I will always think that. That's what fathers do." He rubbed his thumb over my antenna, and I involuntarily melted, though I didn't purr or make a sound. "Say something please?" Optimus asked.

I hugged him back when he hugged me, and then I sighed. "Fathers also don't take their stresses out on their children with words." I stated quietly.

Optimus pulled me tighter. "I know, and I'm sorry. All the stress has just caught up with me lately. I did not mean to do it."

I sighed again. "I know. I know." Most parents didn't mean to take out stress on their kids, but some did, and usually the ones who don't ever take it out on their kids feel horrible afterwards. "It happens when you least expect it, so don't be too sorry." As an after thought, I added, "I'm still pissed though. I probably will be for a while."

He sighed and tugged me towards the door that lead to the underground. "Come on, let's get you clean. The sand will wear out your gears and joints." Always count on Papa to care about my joints after an argument.


	41. Thunder Rolls

(_**Thank you my loyal reviewers, I hope you enjoy this chapter a fair amount, seeing as not much happens yet and its shorter then I would have liked to have it. Next chapter though, is gonna have a bit of a surprise if everything goes to plan ^_^**_

_**Not much to say, my muse is strong, and there for the story shall go on!**_)

I was settled into the large cargo plane that was taking us to an airport in Albany, Oregon. The arrivals were due to land tomorrow, so we needed a temporary camp set up, and we kind of got off of base a little later then what was planned due to out plane being busy with something the day we were to leave. I was nestled in-between Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, my alt mode standing taller then theirs but also shorter length wise, and we had several NEST soldiers here with us and they had two vehicles parked towards the front of the bay for them to travel in. We were due to arrive any time now, within minutes actually, and I was dreading it. Not because I was coming home to a place that isn't my home any more, no, not that. We have Skippy again for our pilot. Yeah, it sucks. Defiantly a reason to get airsickness if I could. I have changed my license plates too so I blend in better and I tinted my windows dark enough that no one could tell I had no driver. It says that I'm from Oregon, and my letters say 'ST1D3R' across the plate. Unoriginal, I know.

The twins were correct in not taking it slow. They didn't do anything extreme, honestly. Just subtle touches here and there, lingering of servos and the such. And they are possessive, but I don't know it that's the guardian thing talking or not. Nonetheless, they growled at the little twins for pestering me with various shit and stuff. I thought it was hilarious how fast the little twins scrambled to get out of their area of wrath. Not surprisingly, Papa did not find it funny.

I sunk on my shocks as the plane began to dip at a fairly quick rate. Skippy cheerfully called over the intercom, "Ladies and gentle bots, we're landing in the 'port now! Hold onto your nuts and bolts, because it's gonna be bumpy!"

Bumpy it was indeed. We ended up bouncing around like we were in a freaking giant bounce house. If you have ever seen a Newton's Cradle, then you know what we looked like, though we managed not to trade paints. I popped up on my back wheels several times, and it always sucked when I came back down with a bang. The guys, being lower to the ground, were much less easy to pop up.

When the plane came to a stop, thank god, I rolled impatiently towards the door. "We have landed, ladies and gents, now, if you would exit the plane without panicking, that would be wonderful!" Skippy chirped. When it rolled open and the soft sunlight graced my hood, I revved my engine and rolled out swiftly followed by the twins.

We revved and stretched our wheels a bit by doing a short run up and down the runway. I rolled to a stop next to one of the large black sedans they have to travel in. The humans had already loaded up themselves and their things, and the driver rolled down his window so he could talk to me. He was tanned like most of the soldier boys are after being in the Diego Garcia sunlight, and had dark hair and eyes. Pretty plane Jane if you ask me.

"Nightstrider, you know where our destination is, correct?" He asked me. His uniform said that his name was Byron Maltoves.

"Yes, Byron, we do." I answered him lightly. "We're bound for Thirty-two five eight seven, Green mountain drive, in a part that locals call Lacomb, Lebanon."

"Good." He stated. "We'll see you there then. We have to stop at a local store for Sphinx." I had heard her name, don't know her personally. "She needs some… um…" he trailed off awkwardly.

Sphinx, a fair haired blond bomb, leaned forward over the seat and addressed me herself. "What Ronny here cant seem to say is that I need some Tampons. I'm almost out."

"Alright, we will meet you there then." I agreed. "After all, no woman should be without those when she needs them." I chirped. She nodded at me and then disappeared back into the back seat. We exited the airport, the two cars full of humans heading into town. I pulled onto an off ramp, and then into the very little traffic on the highway.

We traveled down the road at the speed limit of sixty, the twins easily cruising along at that speed as if it were nothing. I didn't have much problem keeping that speed ether, but it wasn't as pleasant seeing as my wind resistance was shitty. Sideswipe almost caused a wreck, seeing as he thought it was funny to bump me in the aft softly while going around a corner. I scared some poor lady shitless, and probably permanently made a Chihuahua afraid of cars.

I slowed however when we came upon a cemetery. :Go on ahead, I want to look at something alone.: I linked to the twins as I flipped my turn signal on and slowed. I rounded the corner, and the twins, though they slowed slightly, kept going.

:Be quick, Princess. Optimus wouldn't like us to let you be while on a mission. What are you going to look at?: Sideswipe responded.

I pulled into the little drive that wound around the graves. I scanned each one carefully. :Nothing interesting, just seeing if something I had read about was here.: I lied easily.

:Ah. Be quick then, we'll give you half an earth hour to catch your aft up. We'll circle the area.: Sunstreaker said.

:Circle? Why?:

:Neither of us was paying attention when the coordinates were said.: Why did I figure. I let my hydraulics hiss in a sigh.

:Serves you right.: I told them.

:Tick tock Princess. Wasting time, aren't you?: I didn't answer Sideswipe back.

I locked my optics on a gravestone, and the one next to it. Large and worn, it stood tall, ever vigilant over the body that lay beneath the surface. Across the surface, the name of my mother was scrawled neatly and why she died. It stated that she had died before her time, and that while it was sad, she wouldn't want anyone to grieve to hardly for her. In front of it, sat fresh tulips and roses, which had been my mother's favorite flowers. The one next to it wasn't nearly as big or worn, but it was just as grand. Across it, was my human name, my reason I died which said that I died a hero, and in front of it a bundle of blue orchids and sunflowers lay freshly. Those two had been my first and second favorite flowers, in that respective order.

I let out a sigh. So my family had existed here too. And it looks like what was dead there when I died was dead here too. Oddly it put me at peace in a way, to know that there wasn't another me out there, and possibly living the life I could never have again. It lifted a weight that I had never known was there off of my spark. Honestly, now that I think on it, actually it is kind of mean that I was a bit happy that my alternate self is dead also. If I came here when I died, where did she go when she died?

I silently turned myself around and left.

It didn't take me long to find the twins, they were sitting along the edge of the road about half a mile from where I had been. :Having trouble?: I comm. linked them.

:Nope, just waiting for you.: Sunstreaker drawled. :Didn't take you long, did you find what you were looking for?:

:No.: I lied and drove passed them. They pulled out behind me, and then I began leading them again, this time though I began taking back roads and short cuts that would get us where we needed to be, much faster then if we took the long way.

It took us roughly thirty minutes to get there, to a large expansion of forest about two minutes away from where my old home used to rest, and owned by Weyerhaeuser, which was a huge logging company. When I say where my old home used to be, that's because it looks like it was torn down, and is now covered in baby trees. It kind of broke my spark a bit to see the old ranch not a ranch any more, but there was nothing I could do about it.

We found a secluded spot, and waited for the sedans to pull up. We didn't have to wait more then half an hour. They pulled up, and then the twins transformed. Sedans, while nice and supposedly able to off road, would not be able to make it up the side of a mountain. I, however, can.

I was loaded up with humans, eight total, their luggage, and their weapons incase a hostile comes to the area. I felt bloated, let me tell you this, and it was a tight fit. I had humans sitting on each other, and I had one tucked in the back with the luggage. I don't think he minded though, seeing as he could stretch out as much as he could over and under the luggage. I also had the windows down, seeing as it was actually a warm day and I didn't have an air conditioner built into me.

The twins followed up behind me and moved things out of the way if I couldn't get over them, like tree's and boulders and the such. Other then slowing down for that, we made great time because none of the humans inside of me minded a rough ride. I got whoops and cheers when I would take a bump a bit too hard and be air born for a short bit. It was not a boring ride up at all. Nope, not at all, because even army brats know how to have fun.

When we found a clearing as close as we could get to the landing site, I stopped and popped open my two doors and my back hatch. My tailgate fell open and some stuff slid down to rest on it. The humans piled out of me and began unloading. When everything was unloaded and stuff, I closed up and then transformed. A couple of the NEST members, new recruits by how they stared, watched with an uneasy fascination at all the parts of me shifting.

When I stood fully transformed, I stretched my cables and joints. I felt good. Giving a satisfied chirp, I turned to look at the twins. Sideswipe was watching the humans, giving little tips and such on how to keep their tents from being knocked over in a strong breeze and other things. Sunstreaker had plopped himself down, and was now stretched out in a sunny spot.

I gave a half smile and then moved just slightly and squatted next to where Byron was pitching a tent. "Is there anything you need for us to do?"

"Not really, unless you can find us some firewood or something. I know I'm on duty and all, but this _is_ camping, and what is camping without smores?" He gave a grunt and hooked a stubborn spot on the tent. I agree, I used to love smores. Who doesn't?

"Firewood, consider it done." I answered. I stood up and surveyed the surrounding tree's. Walking to an ancient Douglas fir tree, I gently snapped a bunch of dead or dying limbs off the tree. It wouldn't hurt it to have the dead things off. It's like taking split ends out of hair. Bringing them back to the camp, I snapped them into smaller pieces and then set them on the ground for them to be used later for their fire.

My work done, I carefully walked to a large space of shade next to the patch of sunlight Sunstreaker was lying in and then sat myself down. I shifted my wings and then laid down on my stomach to relax in the shade and give my systems time to cool down.

I believe I drifted into recharge, because I ended up opening my eyes to find it nighttime with a rumble going through the air, a fire crackling lowly, the humans asleep in their tents, though one was up and acting as their little guard, and myself stretched across the twin's laps. I arched an eyebrow plate. "How long did I recharge?"

"Couple hours." Sunstreaker rumbled quietly.

I nodded and they let me stand. I stretched my plates and wings. I tuned my audio receptors to the rumbling noise. "You hear that?" I asked.

"Yeah." They answered me.

I gave a huff. "That means our comrades are early." I wanted to sleep more…


	42. Glitch

(_**Omg! Whoo hoo! Things are going good, I have one hell of a muse for this chapter, though due to being longer and it being to late at night for me to finish it, I had to finish it later after I woke up for the day.**_

_**Oh, and because the authors note would be a hell of a lot too long if I did it, I'm gonna say that you should go to my favorites on my profile, hit the category button, and then go look at the transformers stories on there. Each and every one has given a little to my muse, and let me have insight to the different personalities each character can take on.**_

If you do read them, please leave a nice review for the authors for their good and honest hard work. Some of them will make you bawl, some will make you cry, and some with have you on the edge of your seat tugging at your hair waiting to see what happens next. ^_^

Almost one hundred thousand words! Whoot!

Without further adieu, I give you chapter Forty-Two!)

I stretched, and then stomped roughly on the ground. It made a loud noise and made the ground rumble slightly. It was enough to jolt some of the soldiers out of their sleep, and they in turn woke their comrades. In record time, ten seconds give or take, the soldiers were out of their tents, fully aware, and fully armed. I stepped up closer and gave them a sign to put their guns away for now. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker hauled themselves to their feet and stretched their joints and cables.

"At ease soldiers." I stated. Good thing for previous military training. "No danger that we can sense."

The NEST members slid their guns into the large holsters that were designed to deal with guns that would help the humans remove Decepticons. Byron, who I'm guessing was temporary leader of this team, stared up at me. "Then what was the cause for you to wake us up?"

I motioned to the comet forms of our friends as they soared over our clearing. A few seconds later, the ground shook violently and there was a spray of debris a bit further away from camp, and then there was a secondary explosion. What the fuck was that? "As you can see, our Autobot companions are early to arrive." I turned and started off in the direction that they had landed. "I'll go ahead and check things out and see if anyone is hurt."

I walked quietly through the woods, living up to my name now as Nightstrider, with the humans combing though to check them over. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker went I a wide circle around me and most likely where ever the two bots had landed, and were going to come into the crash site not to much later then I would. When I found the crash line, I followed along it. It didn't take me long to see them.

Both were transformed but only one was standing upright, a large mech that my eyes told me was roughly twenty-one feet tall give or take a few inches and centimeters. His back was turned to me, his armor a bland silver color though it was flecked with dirt, grass, and other things that came with crash landing, and just slightly over the top of his helm I could see little spots that raised up in a ridge like thing that told me he had little horn like things on his head.

The other one was sitting down, though my scanners say he resides close to eighteen feet tall. His armor, like the other one, was dirty and silver. His helm though, instead of having horns or little audio things, it had these little fin like things with glowing screens that were constantly shifting colors, his face free of a mask. He reminded me of one of the original characters. I just can't remember who it is. His left arm, however, was almost completely blown off. It was hanging by a couple energon lines and some cables from where it would connect to his shoulder. Other then that, it was making a nasty mess as it drained out. My med kit doesn't have the correct things for dealing with things like this. It doesn't have the metal that would be needed remake what was lost. Looks like I get to donate!

As I approached silently, I could hear the one standing up berating the one on the ground. Apparently they managed to download the English language over the Internet like the other had. "-Could you be working on one of your projects while we were landing? You know that they often explode, Wheeljack. You could have harmed an organic." Wheeljack! That's who! The one who makes things go boom, and had no mouth. But he has a mouth here. Confusing, but I guess if he didn't have a mouth, how would he consume energon?

I purposely made a noise roughly thirty feet from them. Wheeljack didn't get the chance to respond, because the standing mech whirled and transformed his arm into a cannon, which he pointed viciously at me. I held up my hands as if to say I was unarmed, which I'm not. "Easy, easy, I mean no harm to you." I said loudly.

"Who are you, and what is your reason for being here?" The horned Mech asked coolly. He rotated his cannon.

I took a couple steps closer with my hands still in the air. I stuck my leg out slightly, and then slowly removed the layer of armor that covered my Autobot symbol. "Normally, here on earth it is custom that you give your designation before asking another what theirs is, but I suppose we can go into that later. I am Autobot Nightstrider. I was sent here in place of my adopted father, Optimus Prime. He was busy with the human government, and I was sent with my guardians to greet you here along with a group of humans." I gestured to the surrounding trees. "They are scanning the woods to keep it safe for now."

He was silent for a moment, and as his optics dimmed briefly, I had the feeling he had comm. linked Optimus. Then he straightened up ridged, and put his cannon away. "Optimus has vouched for what you have said. Please, pardon my rude behavior, Daughter of our Prime, had I known I would have never done such a thing. I am designated Prowl, tactician and tactical specialist. I am willing to accept any punishment for my vulgar behavior, and for acting aggressive to you."

I waved my hand through the air, pulling some stuff out of a file that I had hijacked on greetings and such from my papa. "Well met, Autobot Tactician Prowl. I see no need to punish you, because I would have done the same with an unknown mech." I walked forward and down into the large pit that both Autobots occupied, now that most of the tenseness was over. I neared Wheeljack, and to be polite and not le them know I had heard Prowl chastising Wheeljack, I questioned. "Hello. I'm Nightstrider, incase you missed it. Who might you be?" I knelt next to him.

"I am Autobot Wheeljack, Autobot inventor and technical whiz as the humans say. It is an honor to meet the daughter of our beloved Prime." He said. He moved to get up, and I gently set a hand on his chassis to still him.

"Please, do not move. I'll patch up your arm until we can get you to the base." I stated. I quirked a grin. "I totally will help you test almost anything you build later back on base." I may be a bit crazy, but it could be a lot of fun too. We'll just have to see.

"We'll see." His little head fin things lit up in a multitude of colors. "The daughter of our Prime shouldn't have to do such things for a mech such as me. I can wait until we get to the base, and the medic can look at me."

"How about not. With your arm like this, you wont be able to transform, and we do not have a trailer on which we could pull you on it." I subspaced my medical kit, and then sorted through it. "Welder, welder, oh where is the welder?" I murmured to myself. "I'll patch you up the best we can, and if you cant transform still, then I'll see if we can finagle to have a trailer brought in."

Prowl cleared his throat. "Would you mind filling us in on what all has happened, as you are here in Optimus's place?"

:Hey.: I comm. linked to the twins. :Can you please come here and fill our friends in please? I'm a little bit busy. Someone's arm is falling off, and I'm to lazy to multitask.:

:Sure, Princess. Be there in a few seconds.: Sideswipe replied.

I glanced at Prowl. "I don't really multitask well when I'm doing medical work, seeing as I am just a part time assistant, so my guardians will explain when they get here." I answered him.

Sunstreaker's line cracked for a moment. :Stupid organic squishies… wont stop following me… Who arrived?:

:Wheeljack is who I'm tending to. Prowl is who you'll be informing.: I informed them. Ah ha! Damn welder, I found you! I pulled it out and set it down, and then I pulled out several spare cables and wires along with some tools I would need to attach them. I snagged a couple clamps to clamp off the energon leak. I passed both mechs a medium sized cube of energon that was in there to tide them over for now. Now then, to take a quick peak for extra metal…

:Frag, it's the cop bot!: I heard Sideswipe curse. I heard them come rumbling into the clearing.

I turned my attention off of them as they started talking to Prowl. I turned my attention to the bot in my care. His head fins were flashing oddly, and I ignored them for now. I found no trace of extra metal within my med pack, and let out a curse. Obviously Ratchet didn't think anyone would be hurt bad enough to send extra metal for patch jobs.

"Is something then matter, daughter of the Prime?" Wheeljack asked.

I sighed. "Please, call me Nightstrider, or better yet call me Strider if you really want me to be happier. But yes. Ratchet didn't send any metal for patches or welding jobs." I set to work replacing what I could, and then rewiring some of it. Ratchet could fix it when we got back, I was just gonna make it so his arm wont fall off and he can transform.

Wheeljack's head fins shifted colors uneasily. "We can wait until we get back to base then."

"We aren't." I stated. I reached up to where the armor on my arm mirrored where his was missing, and then pulled the first layer off.

The mech I was working on jerked suddenly. "What are you doing?"

"Giving a metal donation." I answered. I fiddled around for the catches on the under armor, but it was a little hard finding it.

"You can't do that!" he blurted. "It's not expected of the Prime's younglings to do anything to help another mech or femme if they're in need. It leaves you without protection."

"Key phrase. Not expected. I do the unexpected, ask anyone. Deal with it." I stated. I found the catch, and began to maneuver the armor out of the space between the upper layer. "I have two layers of armor above my protoform. I'm plenty protected, even if I give some of it away to a mech in need." I pulled it out. "See?"

His optics shined slightly. "Interesting. Thank you, then, but I cannot accept something important to your safety. Even the tiniest loss of armor can cause a premature offlining."

I sighed and took a few more bits of under armor out before replacing the outer layer again. I turned slightly after setting it down next to my supplies. I shifted my armor out of the way, and exposed my sensitive spot to him. "You see this?"

"Yes." Wheeljack answered.

"Good." I turned again and moved my armor back into place. I set to work on his arm, welding my plattings back onto him, and letting his arm start to heal on its own. "That was caused by a Decepticon, not to long ago."

"What happened?"

"I died." I said bluntly. "Decepticon shot me through and through. Nicked my spark, and blew my chest plates out. All because I humiliated him by ripping is interface rod off with my claws."

He seemed to flinch slightly. "Then how are you here now?"

"Something you'd have to ask my dad about." I knew why, I just felt it was Dad's place to inform them about that. I felt a small hand on my leg. "Hello Sphinx." I greeted the human woman. "Sphinx, meet Wheeljack. Wheeljack, meet Sphinx."

"Greetings." Wheeljack greeted.

"Hello is the better term." Sphinx corrected. "So yes, hello to you too." She looked at me. "Perimeter is clear, and camps packed up. I figure we would head back as soon as these two get alt modes."

I nodded. I finished with Wheeljacks arm. He would be able to transform alright, but he wouldn't be able to drive. I sighed. "Alright. Wheeljack, Prowl," I got the other Mechs attention. I looked at him, and saw him looking at the humans in an interested kind of way. He had been talking to Byron, but when I called he looked over. "Look across the internet for your choice of alt mode please. Byron, can you please see if we can possibly get a trailer big enough to hold Wheeljacks alt mode and have it dropped off at the bottom of the mountain? His wheel wont be able to drive right when he transforms. Also, inform them that Pilot Skippy will be needed to take us back to Diego Garcia."

"Sure thing." Byron agreed. He pulled out a huge radio thing and then fiddled with it for a bit before talking into it.

I helped Wheeljack stand up, and then watched as he folded down into some form of white racecar. He tried driving, but one of his front wheels wasn't working, so he unfolded again. Prowl folded down into a Ford Explorer that was personalized to look like a police cruiser, complete with lights and all. When he transformed back, I saw that his horn like things had became a red color, making them stick out against his coloring like a basketball in a barrel of soccer balls.

"We got the trailer." Byron informed us. "It'll be there when we get down there, and Skippy was already on the plane waiting, with what I could hear, some sort of strange elevator music playing." Strange human Skippy was…

"Alright." I nodded to him. I straightened up and stretched. "I do not feel like driving just yet, so we will have to carry the humans and their belongings down the mountain side." When humans had been sorted out to who ever was going to carry them, and the belongings stuffed into various spots and all, I turned myself to the bots that had their arms full of humans and such. I got the pleasant job of carrying Sphinx and Byron, both settled in the spots that made up the softer parts on my shoulders. It dipped in just enough that they could be seated with little to no risk of falling, though they did keep a good hold on the surrounding armor. "Alright, lets roll and be careful."

The trip down the mountainside was rather uneventful. I stuck nearest the front, essentially leading the way down, though I did almost slip and fall on my ass in a spot that was a bit too smooth of rock for me to grip well. It took us maybe a half an hour or so, because we had to take it slow for the human's sake.

When we got to the bottom, true to what Byron had said, the trailer was there, and waiting. It was small, a standard one for hauling small cars and machinery. I let down the humans, and then shifted into my alt mode, though I made one altercation. I gave myself a tail hitch made out of some extra components that weren't really needed. I then pulled myself around and backed up to the trailer.

"Okay, Wheeljack." I stated out loud. "I do not want any complaints, I'm hauling you to the airport because my alt mode is more suited to hauling then ether of the twins or Prowls."

I heard sighs, but no arguments for once. It was extremely awkward to have my hitch hooked to something. Very awkward indeed… when Wheeljack was loaded up, and then tied down, he asked, "Why am I being restrained?"

"The law." I answered. "If I were to take a corner to sharply, then you could flip off and hurt yourself and someone else. Then we'd be in trouble with Optimus, and the human law." I explained.

"I see." When he was sufficiently tied down and the cables and such were hooked to my lights, I tested them. They worked.

"Ready?" I called. There was a collective round of affirmations. "Alright, Sideswipe, will you lead the way please, and try and stay close so I don't have to deal with civilian drivers out late while I'm hauling a trailer?"

"Sure." He answered and pulled out.

All in all it didn't take us long to get to the airport, though it tired me out. I'm no Optimus or Ironhide; I'm not built for hauling a three-ton racecar, or at least not yet anyways. I need to hit the gym more often. We took the quick way, which I had to lead through there, and Sideswipe lead for the most part. I followed behind him, Prowl behind me, and Sunstreaker behind him, with the humans tailing behind us. We made an odd sight to the few humans who happened to pass us, I'm sure. When we arrived at the plane, the back hatch was open, and we let the humans park their cars in there first. One of the newer NEST members was the one who unhooked me from the trailer, and then I had transformed and gently used my claws to cut the ropes they had used to tie Wheeljack to the trailer with. From there, he let himself half roll, half slide off, and then he transformed again.

"What is this?" he questioned the plane.

I stretched myself a bit and got rid of my hitch. Good riddance to the damn thing. "That's what humans call a plane. They use it to get over seas and from place to place faster then by water or land."

"Interesting."

Prowl transformed and seemed to inspect it. "Is it safe?"

"Accidents always happen." I informed him. "But generally, provided you have a good pilot, the flights are safe and smooth."

"Will this be safe and smooth?"

"Depends on how you look at it." I answered again. "Skippy is a great pilot, but his flights will make you bounce around everywhere. So as per the humans view, yes, he is safe. To me, he's questionable. Loyal and happy-go-lucky, but very questionable." He didn't look impressed. "He hasn't crashed us yet Prowl." I threw in.

When we all loaded up, me being the last one in, it ended up being a bit of a tighter fit then I would have thought. Good thing though, that both Prowl and my alt mode was considerably shorter then the other's or it would have felt tighter. We weren't pressed side to side or anything like that; it was more or less we just didn't have as much room as usual with two extra bots in here. Wheeljack was next to me on one side, transformed down of course, Prowl was behind him, Sunstreaker on my other side, and Sideswipe parked behind us both.

It was an honest to god long flight, and bumpy too. Skippy was a worse pilot at night, believe it or not. Poor Prowl. He kept jumping every time the plane would jolt. But who was I to talk? I did too. I caught up on some much-needed recharge through a good portion of the flight, but I still needed a few more hours by the time we had landed.

"Landing in Diego Garcia, ladies, humans, and gentle bots!" Skippy chirped over the intercom.

I let out a groan as the plane tilted downwards, quickly. The twins mirrored my groan as our front tires lifted up slightly, and then banged back down roughly as the plane landed and then began a bouncing coasting speed over the black top. I felt it circle once or so and then it came to a stop.

"We have landed in Diego Garcia! Enjoy your stay, and watch out for sand crabs. They pinch." Skippy chirped again. The ramp fell with a clang to the pavement, and then I rolled out. Everyone, minus Wheeljack, rolled themselves out onto the pavement behind me and then transformed. Wheeljack waited until the humans had unloaded and then transformed and exited the plane.

There to greet us when we were all out was the majority of NEST's human occupants, and all the Autobots here. I didn't see Jazz, though it's probably because he is a lot smaller then the rest of the bots height wise. Optimus have me a quick hug, and then let Elita get a hold of me. She had been kind of clingy as of late, and seemed really happy about something or other. She snatched me up, though I was a couple feet taller then her, and hugged me. I hugged her back tiredly, and then I turned my attention to Optimus and our newcomers.

"Optimus prime." Prowl stated. "It is an honor to be back and fighting by your side."

Optimus gave him a firm hand shake, "Please, old friend, it's good to have you back. There are no formalities needed. Same for you, Wheeljack." Optimus indicated the white mech.

"Of course." Wheeljack nodded. What the hell, be all creepily formal with me, and just accept Optimus's word to be informal? What kind of shit is that? So, not cool.

I blinked and then stepped away from Elita. I walked forward and snatched Ratchet. "Hey, I need you to check Wheeljack's arm and finish repairs for me if you don't mind."

Ratchet gave me a grunt and a pat on the helm. I grimaced. "Sure thing." He strode forward, dragging me along. He looked at the metal that was serving as a temporary skin in a way. "This is your under armor."

"Yeah. You didn't pack any extra metals in the kit for me to use. I had to improvise."

He sighed. "At least I can replace your under armor."

"Yep." I agreed. Then I moved away. I moved to the back of the little Autobot mob, and found Jazz. He was staring off out to the sand dunes. I reached my arm out and set it on his shoulder. He turned his visor to me. "Why aren't ya' up there saying hello to everyone?"

"F'r reas'ns you wouldn' understand, Lil Lady." He rumbled to me.

I sighed and pulled on his shoulder. "Prowl?"

He sighed at me. "How'd ya' know?"

"Femme intuition." I sniffed. "It goes further then that, doesn't it?"

"Yeah…"

I blinked tiredly at him. "Alright, if you ever need anyone to talk to about it, just let me know, okay? I'll try and help as best as I can. May I take a guess as to what's bothering you?"

"Go f'r it."

"You are sparkmates." I tried.

He chuckled slightly. "Not quite. Almost, and then we got forced to go separate ways."

"I see." I nodded. "Well here isn't the best place for a talk, so if you need to talk it out to someone who can give you an unbiased opinion, give me a buzz and we'll chat." I patted him on the shoulder.

He quirked a half-grin at me. "A'right Lil Lady, I'll give ya' a call if 'ah need ta' talk."

"Good mech." I chirped at him, and then I walked back to the front of the mob of humans and Autobots. Optimus had just finished, it looks like, giving Prowl a better lay down of what has happened then Sunstreaker and Sideswipe did.

Optimus then dismissed everyone, and had the Lamborghini twins show Prowl where he was going to be staying. Ratchet stole away Wheeljack and Jolt, who would probably do most of the tool fetching, and whisked them to the med bay. Everyone else dispersed though, accept for Optimus, Elita, and I.

"We have something to tell you." Elita chimed. She and Optimus guided me back to the bedroom we all shared.

When we were there, and I had been given a little bit of energon, they then stood in front of me and both smiled the most ecstatic smiles I had seen since I accepted Elita to be my adopted mom, and since I became Optimus's daughter.

"It was just made official yesterday, we had Ratchet check." Elita chirped. Her hands twitched as if she had something she wanted to hold.

"And we thought that you would like to know about it."

"Okay…?" I drawled tiredly.

Optimus's side of the bond flared up with so much love and joy, it actually boggled my processor. "You're going to be a big sister."

… What?

"And we're… what's the word… excited, because Ratchet says due to our race being more adapted to changing, our sparkling will be sparked in just a few months, instead of years!" Elita rambled.

Sparkling. Big sister. What?

"We're going to have to get a bigger berth." Optimus noted. "There's no way us three plus a new born sparkling will be able to fit on it without someone being uncomfortable."

Bigger bed. Big sister. Sparkling. Ratchet's words. Rejection.

"What do you think Strider? Are you excited?"

Outcast. Alone. Alone. Sparkling.

"Strider?" Optimus asked.

Elita's face melted into confusion. "Nightstrider? Is something wrong?"

Outcast. Alone. Alone. Sparkling. Bigger bed. Big sister. Sparkling. Ratchet's words. Rejection. Sparkling. Big sister. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. What?

My processor gave a hiccupping noise, sparked painfully, and then the world started to tilt. My adopted parents eyes widened, and they gave some choice words in Cybertronian.

To put it shortly, I glitched.


	43. Pact For Sanity

(_**Thank you; thank you all for your comments and the such!**_

_**Dreadfully short compared to the last one, I know, but it's a small step into what is going to happen. It actually is kind of a dark and depressing chapter -_- but it gives you a bit of insight to another side of her I don't think we've seen yet. Hope ya'll like it.**_

Not much else to say, accept it's hot enough I wrote this chapter in my undergarments, and that Mexican rice pudding is delicious!

Oh, and if you have a question, go ahead and send me a message on my profile. Send me one even if you just wana talk! I'm lonesome :3)

My optics came blearily online, and I was facing the ceiling in the med bay, with a bit of a headache buzzing at the back of my mind. The room was fairly dark, which told me that it was late at night, though there was a light that was coming from the area that Ratchet had designated as his desk. When I was aware enough to do so, I shut down the emotional part of the bond between Optimus, Elita, and I, so I didn't accidentally wake them. Force of habit, actually. My hydraulics gave a groan and I sat myself up.

Ratchets voice made me start slightly, even though I figured he was already there. "I was beginning to wonder when you would wake up. I finished the repairs I had to make to your processor." He approached the side of the bed and plopped down in the large chair next to it. He shoved a small cube of Energon into my hands, and then kicked back.

"I glitched." I stated and took a drink. Now why did I…?

"From the news that you're going to be a sister, yes." Ratchet nodded.

Oh. Yeah. That… Great…

"Don't you glitch again. If you do, I'm not fixing you." Ratchet warned. He wouldn't not fix me, but I'm sure he'd make sure I felt it when I woke up. "Now, your parents want to know and asked me, but I was planning on it anyways. Will you tell me what about the news made you glitch?"

I can understand them wanting to know. Doesn't mean I want them to know though. I angled my head at him slightly and took another draught of the energon. "Are you pulling a doctor Phil?"

Ratchet heaved a sigh. "If that is what you wish to call it, then yes. Now, answer my question." I sighed and watched my energon as I swirled it around a bit. "I'm not letting you out of this med bay until I get an answer, Nightstrider."

"I know." I snapped. Then I sighed. "Sorry Ratchet."

He held up a hand. "Its fine. Now, tell me. I'm not opposed to hacking your processor to see what the problem is. Your too young to crash like that."

I sighed again and finished my energon, then gave Ratchet the empty cube. "Before I tell you anything, how is Wheeljack?"

"Recovered, and already tinkering in a reinforced room that he has claimed as his lab." Ratchet grimaced. "He's already got a project going; some type of jet pack like thing."

"Oh goodie. I said I'd help test out some of his inventions."

Ratchet gave me a strange look. "Ether you are the bravest or most idiotic femme I have ever met. No one offers to help Wheeljack."

I shrugged at him. "I'm odd and resilient. Got two layers of armor here, compared to the regular one layer. I have the right to be stupid if I can handle it."

Ratchet leaned forward and set his face on his hand as his elbow leaned on the armrest. "You're stalling."

Shit, I was. "Alright." I groaned and flopped my legs over the side of the bed. I crossed my arms and studied my feet. "You remember when you said that the chance of an adopted sparkling being accepted by their siblings, older or younger, was less then a five percent chance, and that roughly ninety-five percent are shunned and never accepted?"

He nodded. "I do recall that, yes."

"Then you should know why."

He snorted. "I do, but I want you to tell me why so I can understand it better and make no assumptions."

My door wings drooped slightly. "The chances of me being accepted is less then five percent." I closed my optics and a shudder transverse through my body. "I can't be excited, frag I actually dread it, if I know that I'm going to cause turmoil in my family because the new sparkling doesn't want me anywhere near them."

"I see."

I let out a small shudder again and opened my optics, letting them land on the mech who was listening to me on what I think. "My parents; they're excited. So excited. They want me to be apart of it, raising it, loving it. They're happy, having their own sparkling that they always wanted. They're going to want me to be happy too." So conflicted. So difficult.

Ratchet pulled a data pad from his subspace and moved to begin scribbling something on it. "And your not?"

"What the hell do you think!" I snapped suddenly, narrowing my optics. I gave a snort after a few seconds. "You may think me selfish, but… I cannot and will not make myself be happy, and love something that is only going to hate me and loathe me when it is born. No matter how much I love my parents, I can't pretend to have something that I do not have."

"Your logic makes sense, but what if the sparkling wants you?" He asked.

His words made sense too. If the sparkling wanted me, then things would probably be alright, though I don't like children so I'd probably still leave it alone. But…

I shook my head. "With my luck, nothing of the sort will happen." I shuddered again and pressed my helm into my left palm as I rested my elbows on my knees. "I… I don't know what to do." I admitted. "If I try and love the sparkling, and it shoves me away from my family, makes me suddenly break the bonds, my spark wont be able to take that sort of thing. I lost my biological femme creator, and I lost both my adopted parents once already. Twice…"

"Your body would begin to shut itself off because of the sudden loss of bonds, and it would have no other bonds to lean on. You would, in theory, lose your mind before you're spark would extinguish." Ratchet finished. "Did I get that right?"

"Yeah…"

Ratchet heaved a sigh. "While I do not under any circumstances approve of such a method, if your dead set on not being near the sparkling, I would suggest that you start slowly, very slowly so you don't harm ether of the three of you or make her lose her sparkling, severing your bond with Optimus and Elita. There is though, still a chance that you will go insane, but it is greatly reduced if you are the one to slowly sever the bond." He shook his head. "I say tough it out kid, and stick with them. Make your sibling know that you have a place in the family, and your not going anywhere. But, worst comes to happen, I will reconfigure your processor and make you forget you ever had an adopted family." He frowned. "I have done it many a time back on Cybertron."

I looked up at him and felt my throat cables convulse in the Cybertronian version of swallowing. "No. I wouldn't want to forget anything, even the bad things. They're my memories, and I want to keep them, good or bad, I still want them." I looked up at the ceiling and clenched my optics and fists shut. "What happens when you go insane?" Maybe it wouldn't be bad, like maybe you become socially withdrawn or something simple like that.

"You become violent, irrational, start to see things, hear things, you turn evil in some cases. You will attack family, friends, even your own sparkmate. You would most likely go after your parents and sibling, blaming them for what you became."

I exhaled deeply. Well fuck. That's not good. "If I do truly start to loose my mind, please just let me at a Decepticon. I would rather go down fighting then to lose my life or memories to insanity." I spoke quietly. "If there are no Decepticons, put me down yourself."

The chair Ratchet sat in creaked as he shifted. "Spoken like a true warrior." He spoke. "If the time comes, and pray to Primus that it doesn't because I will lose a little bit of myself if I do, I promise that if I have to, I will put you down myself." He scrawled out something, and then handed me the pad and pen. "There's my written agreement."

It was copied in English and in Cybertronian. It read, that Ratchet agreed to my request, though the pact may be broken or bent to suite the situation at hand. It was fair terms, and so I searched for the sign spot.

I scrawled out my name in English with the excuse I didn't know Cybertronian. "Good." I said with a somber smile as I handed the pad back. "Lets pray that it doesn't." My smile changed to an emotionally tired grin. "You old mech, I didn't know you liked me enough to 'loose a bit of yourself if you do have to put me down'."

He leaned up and gave me a soft whack on the back of the helm. "Your like that human substance… ah, yes. Mold. You are like mold. You grew on me like mold."

I gave a soft laugh and rubbed where he smacked. It didn't really hurt, not like he had done in the past to the other mechs. "Funny, Sunstreaker said the same thing. Or close too it at least."

"Ah, another topic I wish to discuss." He said. I sighed. "What are your relations with your guardians?"

I shrugged. "They're interested in me, and I'm kind of interested in them. We're friends, we hang out a lot, their my guardians and I'm their charge. Got lots of things you could look at."

"So you do." Ratchet murmured and scribbled a little bit on the note pad. "As long as it doesn't interfere with their ability to guard you, I have no problem with it. Might even keep them out of my hands for a while."

I nodded and stood up slowly and stretched. Ratchet followed my example. He walked to his desk and set the pad on it. Then he turned to me. "You do know that I am, by law, supposed to show your parents what is on that data pad and what I have assumed, right?"

I drooped visibly, my antenna lying flat and my wings drooping down pathetically. "I wish you wouldn't. I really can't deal with them at the moment…"

He sighed and paced to me. Ratchet slung out his arms and gave me a tight hug, one that I returned. "I know. I can move it to a later date, I suppose."

I smiled up at him and perked up again. I moved back on the bed as he let me go. "Really?"

He planted his hands on his hips. "Sure. I'll give you a month to tell them yourself or I can tell them."

My face dropped along with the rest of me. "A month isn't that long… how about two?"

"A month." He stated in his I'm-not-negotiating-tone. "Or I can make it less."

"Fine." I agreed.

"But," he added. Uh oh, what now? "If I think something is going badly, I will tell them early, and tell them what I feel may be happening."

I sighed. "Fine. What do you think about me anyways?"

He sighed. "I have the feeling you may be a bit suicidal-"

I held out my hands in the stop motion. "Whoa, whoa, whoa. I'm not suicidal. The whole pact thing? That's because I could never live with myself, in my right mind of course, if I purposely hurt someone other then a Decepticon."

"I see." I sighed and blinked tiredly at his response. "Go ahead and head back to your parents room and get some recharge."

I shuffled awkwardly. "I… I don't want to go back there yet. I'll just go sleep on the couch."

Ratchet sighed at me and drug a hand down his face. He leaned a bit to the side, and groaned. "Ether in your parents room, or with your guardians. Take your pick."

I huffed at him. "I can sleep on the couch just the same, thank you."

"Not tonight. Incase something goes wrong with the new wires, I want someone there with you." He grunted at me. His optics dimmed for a second, and then was back and bright again. "Sunstreaker is on his way to pick you up since you don't want to be with your family." Yeah, make me feel bad why don't you?

I rumbled at him. He rumbled back at me. "You insufferable mech!" I narrowed my eyes at him. "I could have just slept on the couch! I don't doubt your medical skills."

"You insufferably stubborn femme. I'm doing this for their sake, not yours. You said they were interested? Well your crashing aggravated their guardian protocols, and the fact they are considering you a potential sparkmate candidate did not help with it at all. They already had to fix some of the equipment in the gym because of their little temper tantrums." He barked. "Deal with it, and get some sleep. Sunstreaker's here."

True to what Ratchet said, Sunstreaker stomped in. He didn't even look like he had just woken up, so I guess he wasn't asleep then? He paced to Ratchet and then looked up at the taller mechs face. "Anything we need to know?"

Ratchet cast me a hidden look but shook his head. "No, just keep an eye out for anything out of the ordinary with her processor. I don't want anything to not take right."

"Got it." With that, Sunstreaker strode over and scooped me up off the bed. I didn't say anything, just gave a grunt and held onto his armor.

He toted me silently to his room, which I honestly have never been in before. When he got there, the door slid open to reveal Sideswipe, who stood off to the side to let us in, and then closed the door. So they were roommates? When I caught sight of the bed, that thought fled my mind. There was a huge bed, roughly the same size that Optimus and Elita and I squeeze into, stretched across the room. It was obviously shared, since one giant pillow was red and another was yellow. I guess that makes sense kind of, since they are two halves of the same being.

I was plopped gently onto the bed, and then they climbed in on their respective sides. I was pulled up between them, like how I slept with Optimus and Elita. I was nestled so I was pressed facing Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe spooned up behind me.

"Don't glitch again." Sunstreaker rumbled.

Sideswipe mirrored it. "We thought someone hurt you." His head rested close to mine.

I closed my eyes with a sigh. "I didn't plan it…"

"Just don't make a habit of it." Sunstreaker snorted. I tucked my face into his chest plates and exhaled again.

"I wont." I promised.

"Good." Sideswipe rumbled. "Now, what made you glitch in the first place?"

I stiffened. "I'd rather not say right now. I already had to talk to Ratchet about it. I… I'll try and tell you both sometime later, okay?"

Sunstreaker draped an arm over my hips and relaxed. "Sure. For now, just recharge."

"Were you both still awake when Ratchet called?"

"Yes." Sideswipe answered and shifted against me. His arm came up and draped across my waist area. "We were waiting for you to wake up."

"I see." I nodded and let my body relax. "Well, I'm here now, so go ahead and get some sleep."

"We plan on it."

And then we settled into a comfortable silence. I used this silence to delve deep into my spark to see how it felt about the whole sparkling situation. It was just as boggled as my processor, so I just blocked the bonds for now, shoved all bad thoughts away, and drifted off into a glitch free recharge.


	44. Boundaries Of Gravity

(_**I thank all my readers, sorry this is short, but just kind of call it an interlude if you will, but I have a question for you all~**_

_**Who should be the next bots to arrive?**_)

When I awoke sometime around noon the next morning, I found both twins still curled around me. They were snoring away, each with one arm draped over my waist, as I lay curled up to Sideswipe. An ache settled into my body, one that followed the ache in my spark from blocking the bonds, one that let me know I really needed to get up and stretch my legs, but I couldn't find a way out between the large lumps of red and yellow Lamborghini.

I wiggled slightly, and their arms constricted a bit. So I nudged Sideswipe to try and wake him up so I could get up. Sideswipe, dead sleeper as he seems to be, did nothing but snort and press his face into my helm and continue sleeping on. I rolled over; they let me but then tightened their arms again, and faced Sunstreaker. I nudged him slightly. "Sunstreaker? Hey, Sunstreaker?"

He gave a half grunt half snort for a second. Then his optics peaked open and he gave a groggy, "Hmm?"

"Can you let me up please?" I asked him

Sunstreaker gave a groan and closed his optics. "Why?"

"I want to go for a run, my cables ache and could use it, then I might pop in to see how Wheeljack's doing."

His grip on my loosened and then he tiredly pried Sideswipe's arm off of me. "I guess. Be careful though." And he dropped back to sleep, still holding his brothers arm in the air. I gave a sigh and wiggled my way out, and slipped off the bed and out the door without a sound. I walked down the hallway, and then made my way to the Autobot gym to give myself a stress-relieving workout.

I made it there without anyone's notice for once, and then padded to the punching deceptibag I had renamed Tardass. I rolled my shoulders and bounced on the pad like parts of my feet, putting up my fists in the typical street boxing type of stance. Cracking my knuckle joints, I pulled my arm back and swung forward to make my punch at Tardass.

I was there for about an hour, so I did a fair amount of things. I ran on the giant treadmill, did some bench presses even though your not supposed to do them without a partner, beat at Tardass some more, and then had done weighted squats. I had to take off both outer layers of armor because my internals started over heating and such as I worked my cables and joints to the max.

After a quick spray down in the short five-minute ice cold showers, I put my armor back on and trudged out of the room. I turned down a different hallway, after taking a peak at one of the maps for poorly coordinated humans, and in the direction the newly updated map said that Wheeljack's lab was in. it actually wasn't far from the gym.

I knocked politely, and not a moment later Wheeljack opened the door with a half smile. "Hello Nightstrider. What can I help you with?"

I grinned half-heartedly at him. "I think the proper question is what can I do for _you_? I said I was planning on helping you." I propped my hand on my hip and leaned to the side slightly, "I don't like to make myself into a liar."

He ushered me in, "Alright, I have no problem with that! Besides, I need a bot about your size so I can start on the mini compulsion rockets."

I let him lead me in, and then he had me sit on a table so he could take some measurements of this and that. The room itself was already cluttered with spare parts, wires, cables, and a couple partially put together things. Man, this guy was busy. "What are mini compulsion rockets?"

"Basically it's going to be like a smaller version of the jet's that propel your fighter jets." He answered. I felt him gingerly touching my door wings, feeling and checking out this and that. "I assume you can move these, correct?" I wiggled them to answer his question. "Interesting. Your one of the few femmes' I have met that have door wings. I wonder… how much pressure and damage can they take before they break from your body or become mangled?"

I thought back to all the times they had gotten pulled, crushed, and scraped in fights and everyday things. "They can take quite a beating, from buildings falling on them to Decepticons pulling on them. They are, though, very sensitive. I can feel each and every time you touch them." I said.

"Interesting…" he mumbled from behind me as he tested the maneuverability of the wings.

"So you'll be able to make us fly?" I questioned.

He chirped happily. "Yes, yes! In theory, with door wings and their maneuverability, you would be able to control your fight path easer then if you had a set of wings like a seeker, allowing you sharper turns while a seeker would have to arc in a wide circle. While I cant yet make a set big enough to lift a mech bigger then myself off the ground, I do believe that it can both improve speed while driving, and give the ability to fly, though probably not as good as a seeker and most likely for a short while, to any mech or femme, though I think only those with door wings will be able to do such without them having to learn about whole new mechanisms attached to their bodies, and how to move them and such." Note, when asked about his experiments, Wheeljack can ramble. A lot.

I sighed as he traced the edge of my wing with a small hum. "I would like to be the first to try it out, if you don't mind."

"Not at all!" he chirped. "You're the first in a long time that's volunteered to be my test subject, or be the first to have something installed." He was silent for a moment. "I thought you did not like flying though?"

"There is a big difference when someone else is flying instead of you. Especially when it's Skippy." I said wryly. "Do you already have a plan for it?"

"More then that." He patted my shoulder and moved away. "I already have a prototype. Would you be willing to spare some time now to help me with it?"

"Sure." I answered. "What do you need me to do?"

"First off," he said. "I need you to lay down on your front. I'm going to have to plug a cable into the back of your mind to quick teach you how to activate the thrusters, adjust their speed, and how to try and control your flying."

I nodded and flopped down. He plugged something in, and information rushed through my mind as he fucked around with my wings. I felt a couple more pounds added to them. Heavy thrusters, now aren't they?

It took a little over ten minutes, but when he was satisfied he helped me stand. "Now bare with me, this is the type of prototype that won't let you fly. It's more or less the type that's just to get you used to the feel. The thrusters wont burn hot enough to do any damage to you or anything else, save an organic, so go ahead and fire them up here, then try and move your wings and the thrusters. Let me know what you feel." He instructed.

I nodded and moved a bit away from him, to a spot that looked relatively clear. I looked through the programming, and then found the thruster activation link. I felt the thrusters begin to hum and vibrate against me as I willed them to start up. A few seconds later, they were burning brightly. I began to tilt my wings, seeing how the slight push from the thrusters wanted to send me off balance.

"They're a little heavy, a bit restricting. They have a decent power for a prototype, but try a lighter and more streamline model then the one your using. For us smaller bots, you want it to be something that is small but potent." I stated. Science class back as a human pays off when it comes to speed and aerodynamics. "Try and have it so that it's small, but it goes fast. Most of us smaller bots are about speed. I could up my own speed as well."

"Alright. Go ahead and shut them off. I'll take them off and work on them some more. Come back tomorrow maybe?" he asked as I shut off the burners and then lay down.

"Sure." It was quiet for a bit. "Wheeljack?"

"Yes?"

"Why does no one ever help you?" maybe he was a bit different then the G1 Wheeljack.

He sighed. "I seem to have a nasty tendency to make things explode."


	45. Never Let You Go

(_**IT'S LONG I KNOW, BUT PLEASE READ IT:**_

_**Sorry I didn't update for a couple days. Been stressed though, I'm not feeling to hot so I've been sleeping a lot, and I had company for a day and a half. Two teenage boys are hell on nerves, even when they're your friends, and they gave me one hell of a migraine and a mess to pick up through out the day.**_

_**I'm rambling though, aren't I? Sorry, I seem to do that when I've had an eventful day or days.**_

_**I appreciate all reviews, favorites, or alerts added, and each and every one I receive helps me feel a little bit better. Updates are going to be slower though, as I go into school, which as of 8-30-11 is in 7 days. I have to go to bed earlier, because I need to be able to wake up earlier. Yeah, updates are going to be slow, but I wont stop until this story is completed, which I think it's gonna be in the hundred plus chapters or so. I hope.**_

_**I would love to see some fan art of anything from this story, but that's up to anyone who wants to draw them. Honestly, they are kind of a cross between the bayformers and G1 if anyone has noticed. I know I have.**_

_**Oh, go to my profile if you want to see what mentally scarred Nightstrider. ^_^**_

_**OMG! 100,000+ words with this chapter posted! And I do a lot of quoting from chapter 43 because I am to lazy to come up with a different way to phrase things.**_

_**So, who do you think should be the next to arrive?**_)

So today's the day that Ratchet says I have to tell Optimus and Elita about our talk, and I'm sitting in the examination room so Ratchet can be here with us and because I didn't want to read the data pad, he was going to do it for me. Also, because the asstard put it in Cybertronian. Honestly I'm scared shitless to see how they react. I have no clue how they _are_ going to react. But yes, it already has been a month since out little chat. In one month, though, things can change a lot in their own little way. It can be subtle, like a change in weather over time, or it can be sudden, like a deadly hurricane.

First change. Not really major, but I grew some. I now stand at Sixteen feet, weigh Twenty-Eight hundred pounds, or one point four tons. I'm a bit of a hefty little bot, or at least I think so, though it might be because I try and hit the gym every other day for at least two hours.

Wheeljack has made a shit load of progress on the Mini Compulsion Rockets, or MCR as we've come to call them. He's managed to get me roughly thirty feet off the ground, and has perfected the spot where the rockets hook up, which is on the outer edge of my door wings, though I can transform them down so they are folded down into my door wings. When I transform, they tuck under and act as a nitro pack in a way, but I can fold them out if I need to. The frame itself has been modeled to fit my body, which Wheeljack claims that he will model them for each bot that wants them. He also told me that because I helped him with the experiments and he says he likes my personality, that I get to the first to have the MCR's. I feel special.

Wheeljack was right when he said he has a tendency to make things explode. I've been in the med bay several times due to melted wires and circuitry inside my wings and back plattings. Ratchet, insufferable mech he is, would always berate me and sic Elita on me to make sure I rested.

One of the more subtle changes is Elita. She hasn't changed much yet, as it only has been a month, but there is enough to be noticeable. Her abdominal plattings have expanded just slightly, giving her a small curve to her stomach, and it looks like her hips widened just a tad, but the hips thing might be my imagination. That's not all that changed though.

Do you know that transformers can go through something akin to mood swings? Neither did I, but apparently Elita can.

It started out simple, like she would just be clingy and what not. Then she would become easily angered. She snapped at me once for crashing with another one of Wheeljack's prototypes. Said that I risked my life to help a scientific know it all when he could have done it himself. Well, we ended up arguing big time; much to Optimus's chagrin, and Elita was the one that came apologizing later on. Weird, I know.

That's not the worst part though.

Her sex drive is on the rampage.

How do I know this? Well, I was supposed to be delivering papers to Ratchet, and I happened to be walking across the lot, when I passed by an open hanger and movement caught my eye. When I turned my head to look, I got mentally scarred by the sight of my father pinning Elita up to one of the hanger walls, seeing as the whole thing was deserted for the moment. She had her legs, yes it seems that her one leg can indeed split in half to become two, wrapped around his waist area. They were noisy, and there was sparks flying, literally. It has been burned into my processor forever.

No child, especially one with a grown up mind, wants to see its parents having a PDA, public display of affection. Definitely no child ever wants to see its parents getting wiggy in the hanger. I _sure as hell_ didn't need to see it.

A not so subtle change is how I act around my parents. I've been a bit awkward, and totally avoiding questions that have to do with the sparkling and the such. Also, I've been sleeping on the couch or somewhere else since I glitched. I put it off as if I don't want to accidentally damage the sparkling if I shift in the wrong way, seeing as I'm much bigger then my own mother now. They insisted that I wasn't going to harm it. I argued that they didn't really know, and that I might flail or do something to hurt it in my sleep. They said that I wouldn't instinctively, and that they want me closer. I said that I wanted to be close too, but as the months go by Elita is going to need all the space she can get so its better to start now, since we couldn't get a bigger bed. They argued of course, but for once I ended up winning. So I ether slept on the couch, or whenever the twins could, they stole me away to go snooze with them, which I appreciated a whole hell of a lot. Couches are nice for naps, but sleeping on them for extended periods of time or every night gives you kinks in your wiring, which is a pain in the ass, sometimes, in my case, literally.

I had also kept the bond blocked for the most part. It hurt, a lot, like I was trying to rip my own spark out of my chassis with a pair of chopsticks. I dealt with it though, as I told myself I would have to do in the future, when I had no bond to lean on.

Other then that, not much else has changed.

I heard the door slide open, and in strolled Optimus with his arm around Elita and a gentle smile on his face. Elita had a hand on her stomach plating, with a gentle but worried smile on her face. Ratchet followed them in, and then strolled over to the desk and dug through a drawer. Optimus and Elita went and took a seat on the bed, since I was occupying the chair. Ratchet snatched his rolling chair as he came over with the data pad.

"So," he started as he settled himself into the chair. Ratchet looked at me briefly. "Your sure you want me to tell them?"

"Cant read Cybertronian, remember?" I quirked. I leaned back in the chair, rolling my shoulders and comfortably wiggling my wings as I settled myself in. "So yeah, go for it."

He shrugged at me. "Alright." He settled the pad in front of him. "I'm might end up quoting you, alright?"

"Have at it." I said. "Makes it easier to say, I think." I crossed my arms over my chest and sighed. "I'll break in where I see fit."

He hefted a sigh and then looked at the data pad. "Alright, let me get this straight. I had though that your daughter had suicidal tendencies, but she explained other wise."

Optimus nodded. "I have never felt suicidal feelings through our bond, even as closed as it is now." He cast a pointed look at me.

I said nothing, did nothing. Ratchet continued. "That's good. As I was saying, when she awoke from glitching, we had a nice long talk about what made her glitch. What do you think made her glitch?"

"I think she was just shocked by the news." Elita chirped. Optimus rumbled in agreement.

I made a noise in my throat. "Do you know that there is less then a five percent chance that an adopted sparkling is never accepted, even shunned in most cases, by their adopted parents biological siblings?"

Optimus blinked at me. "I did not know that."

"Neither did I." Elita said.

Ratchet made a loud noise. "That is partially why we are here." He gave me a pointed look. "Since you have made an appearance in this conversation so early, why don't you continue?"

"You got the pad." I stated.

"Then just talk, I'll fill in whatever you miss with my observations." He ordered. I rolled my optics at him.

"Don't want to." I blinked. "That was an order, wasn't it?"

He nodded at me and a satisfied look came into his optics. Ratchet chirped, "Indeed it is, and as a part time medical officer, you have to listen to my orders, in and out of medical work."

I sighed. Old finagler. "Alright." I looked to my parents, and felt a somnolent look come over my face. "What do you want me to feel about the sparkling, and what do you feel about it?"

They looked at each other for a moment, and I felt a brushing against the bond, which I ignored. Optimus gave a half frustrated sigh and said, "We want you to be apart of it, raising it, loving it. We want you happy, like we are. We love the sparkling, however young it is. We're excited, and hope you feel the same, though you don't seem to show it."

I cast Ratchet an I-told-you-so look. I cycled air through my intakes. "I'm going to be blunt, painful for you or not." I stated. "The chances of me being accepted is less then five percent. I can't be excited, frag I actually dread it, if I know that I'm going to cause turmoil with you two because the new sparkling doesn't want me anywhere near it." I'm quoting myself. Oh well, I guess I'm free to do that.

"Cant you just try to love it? Even if the chance is low, the sparkling will love you! I know it." Elita said.

I cast her one long look. "You may think me selfish, but… I cannot and will not make myself be happy, and love something that is only going to hate me and loathe me when it is born. No matter how much I love the both of you, I can't pretend to have something that I do not have." I sighed. It sounded kind of mean, now that I think on it.

"Your right, I do think your being selfish. If you try hard enough, I know the sparkling will bond with you." Elita stated. Does she not get it? "There's no way it wouldn't bond to you, you're our daughter, and its sister. Keep your hopes up, and everything will be fine!"

I narrowed my optics at her. "Less then five percent. With my luck, what the hell do you think is gonna happen?" I said. "I'm not about to get my hopes up for something that's not going to work."

"Is this why you haven't been recharging with us?" Optimus rumbled. "If so, then it's a stupid reason why you are."

I slowly blinked and then looked at my father. "Part of it. Another is, I actually don't want to hurt the sparkling. You two deserve to have a happy family with a biological sparkling of your own." I sighed and ran a hand down my face. "We're getting a little off track. Now, back on the track; If I try and love the sparkling, and it shoves me away from you, makes me suddenly break the bonds, my spark wont be able to take that sort of thing. I lost my biological femme creator, and I lost both of you once already. Twice…" I trailed off like I had before in the conversation with Ratchet.

Ratchet, having been silent until now, stated, "Her body would begin to shut itself off because of the sudden loss of bonds, and it would have no other bonds to lean on. Nightstrider would, in theory, lose her mind before her spark would extinguish. Though there is no way to actually cut the bonds completely, unless you die, but you can cut them to the point that they are almost nonexistent. That's what would happen in this case."

"So your saying, that by our gaining a sparkling, we are also loosing our youngling?" Optimus asked quietly. He looked deep in thought. "Is there any way to prevent this?"

"Ether she needs to have a sparkmate, which she is too young for, or her sibling would need to accept her." Ratchet stated. "To stop the insanity after the bond has been dampened, I would have to erase any and all knowledge of a bond in her processor. Because of everything she's had so far, I would essentially be killing this Nightstrider and making way for a new one to build over top the old ones foundation." Lovely way to put it Ratchet. You didn't tell me _this_ you insufferable ass crack!

"Another option I have," I said, so they would know that all hope is not lost yet, "is to slowly start severing the bond, and as there is less of a chance that I will lose my mind because I'm doing it on my own time, we can just _keep out hopes up_, and hope that everything turns out okay." I sniffed. "or Ratchet said I can tough it out, make sure that the sparkling knows I'm part of this family and I'm not going anywhere. Personally, I don't got the spark to do that, because that means I have to be different then I'd like to be with the sparkling."

Optimus released Elita and leaned his elbows on his knees and crossed his hands. He looked deeply at me, his optics burning to what felt like my soul. "I don't want to loose my daughter." He looked to ratchet. "In all my time, I have never seen anything like this."

"That's because you're not in the medical profession." Ratchet said wryly. "From what I can tell, Nightstrider had already started to try and break the bond subconsciously." He stated. I gave him a slightly bewildered look. How the hell did he know that when I didn't even know I was doing it? It does explain why I feel pain from the bonds though. "I'm a medic, I know everything there is to know about bonds." He sighed.

I reached out and touched my fathers arm. He flinched slightly. "I don't hate you." I said softly. "Papa, I love you as much as I can possibly love something. My whole spark."

"Then why?" Elita warbled. "Why are you doing this? Breaking our family up?"

I looked at her, and sighed at fluffed purple armor plates. "It would have happened eventually Elita." I sighed. "Would you like to know what is going to happen if I lose my sanity?"

She shook her head in denial and then warbled, "Yes."

"Of course." Optimus rumbled.

"We both signed an agreement that if she looses her mind, that I will put her down myself, or if certain manners dictate that it needs to wait, it can be put off for a bit, or I can delegate another mech to do it for me." Ratchet stated. He scrolled through the pad with his fingers, and huffed at something on one page, but continued on.

"Why would that need to be done?" Elita cried out. Optimus must have sensed her distress, because he straightened out with a deep rumble.

"Mother." I stated. It caught Elita's attention, seeing as I cant remember ever calling her anything other then her name before. "Father. I would, in a sense, become violent, irrational, start to see things, hear things; maybe turn evil in some cases. I would attack family, friends. Ratchet says I would most likely go after my parents and sibling, blaming them for what I became. I couldn't live with myself if I harmed any of you, even the sparkling." I stated. "I would offline myself before I deliberately hurt any of you."

Optimus was fast; he was up and off the bed in just seconds. He had me wrapped in his arms not a moment later. "I don't care about what can happen. _We aren't losing our daughter, adopted or not_. You're going to be fine, so don't think on it, okay?"

I hugged him back, just as tight. "Oh, papa. I don't know what to do. Risk it and possibly get my spark broken, or don't risk it and end up insane." I said. It was muffled though, because he had my face pressed to his chassis.

"As the human saying goes, we'll cross that bridge when we get to it." Optimus rumbled as he let me down. He returned to his seat, and I to mine. Elita looked unsure if she wanted to hug me or kick me for all this shit that was happening. Honestly, with all that's happening, I would prefer a nice kick in the aft to set me back on some form of track.

Who knew that when your mother is having a baby, it could get so dramatic? Especially when your life is on the line if the baby doesn't want you?

"We're never going to let you go." Optimus said to me, Elita agreeing with him whole-heartedly.

(_**ENDING AUTHORS NOTE: So I'm going to be skipping a lot through Elita's pregnancy. I don't feel like going through week by week, or month by month, because then it would get really, really, REALLY boring quite fast. But, just so you know, I have one hell of an ending for this little part of her life all planned out. It's going to be epic, maybe cliché, but it should rock your socks!**_)


	46. Autobot Dunking

(_**I am incredibly sorry I haven't updated in a while, I haven't felt good and have been spending the last few days with my family.**_

_**Go to my profile if you will, and look at the photo's I have from Zayren Heart and Yorushihe of Nightstrider. I thank them a whole lot, and they are free to draw pictures for me anytime ^_^, as are anyone else, of course.**_

_**I'm going to state fair tomorrow, and I'm going to ride the mechanical bull if they got one. It's going to be kick ass.**_

_**Again, I need suggestions for the next Mech to arrive. So you can vote for:**_

_**Mirage:**_

_**Wreckers:**_

_**Or another mech of your choosing. Lemme know please.**_)

So it's been two months, a lot has happened and we have something big planned, but I'll tell you about that in a minute. We've had no Decepticon attacks, but I have the feeling they're planning something… something big. Anyways, I've got the bond to my parents at the half severed mark, but I don't have the balls to continue. I… can't abandon my family like that. My spark wont let me go passed the half severed mark, but it wont let me fully join the bond again ether. Ratchet says it's because my spark itself is as confused and torn as my processor is. So, I can only hope that the sparkling accepts me, so I can fully open the bond again.

Elita has gotten a lot bigger, there's a definite bulge, but that's because Ratchet says the sparkling is already half formed. Yeah, I was kind of like, what the fuck, because I thought that it would be short, but not this short. Ratchet says that because we are an adaptable race, our bodies have shifted so that the Cybertronian pregnancy is six months instead of six years or something like that. There's a reason I'm only an assistant medic. Ratchet also says that because we are an adapting species that the sparkling may end up growing like I do. I hope that if it grows like I do, that it isn't painful.

Optimus objected to me sleeping away now that they know the full reason, so I opted to sleep on the floor. He said no, so I stole the couch and put it in the bedroom. He dislikes it, but Optimus says he can't force me to snooze with them. There is no room now for my larger frame anyways. If I were to strip off all my armor, then maybe I'd fit without touching Elita.

Further more, with Wheeljack's Mini Compulsion Jets, we changed it from rockets to jets because it reminded both him and me of the band My Chemical Romance, they're coming along nicely. I got him listening to music while he works. Anyways, he says that they should be fool proof by about a month or two after the sparkling is born. I can fly up to the roof before they cut out. Not a whole lot of explosions, and only one of them was bad. My wrist got blown off, and I had to go find it. Wheeljack helped, and he found it on the roof of the main hanger. Ratchet threw a fit, and said that if Wheeljack weren't more careful with his test subjects, that Ratchet would rewire him into an alarm clock.

With the whole plan thing, it started about three weeks ago. Lennox, Epps, Sam, and Mikaela all coerced me into helping them plan this, and I ended up dragging the twins into it too. They did the designs and shit, and I did the planning and the finagling with the government to get some of the materials. I already knew what role I was going to be playing in the whole thing, besides being the one to orchestrate and prepare most of this thing since the humans had no idea what to do, when we hit it off later this hour. I get to be in the huge ass clear tank, it's like twenty feet deep by eighteen feet wide. Do you know what it is? Yes, it's an Autobot dunk tank! It's also safe for armor, but armor makes it hell'ah hard to swim to the surface. Yep, robots can swim, though it's a lot harder. How do you think they got Megatron out of the ocean?

The humans wanted to throw Elita a baby shower, but because we already have everything that we need for the sparkling they decided to instead have a carnival of sorts for her. It's got both Autobot and human sized games, courtesy of the Twins, Wheeljack in some spots, and myself. The only thing that's universal is the dunk tank. It has both a human sized target and an Autobot sized target, with plastic balls for each species to use. Wait, no there's also the water gun racing thing. It has seats for both Autobot and human, and has been rigged that they can race each other fairly.

The other games include skeet ball, like at chucky cheese's, ring toss, the water gun race thing, a throw the dart at Megatron game where the whole goal is to ether hit him in the crotch or the face with the dart, the human dart board where you throw padded and Velcro covered humans at a Megatron board and try and hit him where it hurts. We had human dummies made, and I got to test it out. It didn't hurt the dummies, since we padded them a hell of a lot, as long as you didn't throw hard enough to break the board. I gave the Megatron board a human bikini. There's also dozens of other games I care not to list. And where is this taking place? Well, on the other side of the island, where we built it in secret.

So here I am, standing in next to the giant extension chord we have to light the place up. Everyone else is scattered about the darkness, waiting for me to throw the switch on Ratchets signal. I can hear my parents approaching now, with Ratchet guiding them. Elita was saying something. "Ratchet? Why the frag do you have us blindfolded?"

Ratchet said nothing. I could hear them come to a stop in front of the crowd of humans and Autobots alike. The rustle of fabric followed, and then I heard him clear his throat. That was the signal.

I threw the switch, and it lit up the area brightly, making me blink. It made my parents armor shine at the sudden flair of light, but not to the point it blinded you. "Surprise!" The humans chimed loudly. The Autobots said the same thing, though at a quieter tone. Optimus didn't react much, accept to look around puzzled. Elita jumped, her hands flying to her distended abdominal armor.

"What is all this?" Optimus rumbled quizzically. Elita sighed and rubbed her stomach plating then dropped her hands to her side.

Will, dressed in carnie wear, stepped forward and waved. "Hi big guy. You see, in our culture, when a female is going to have a child people gather together and throw what is called a baby shower. Baby showers usually have cakes and presents, sometimes games, but since you guys can't eat cake, and we don't know what to get a sparkling, we did something else for you." He motioned happily to the carnival. "We made you all carnival games!"

Their eyes scanned the carnival, but it was Elita that spoke up. Her optics sparkled with happiness. "This is wonderful!" She exclaimed. "Who put this all together though?"

"Well," will began, "we all chipped in to help with this and that, but the one who gave us the idea and kept us on the right track was-" he paused. "A secret." He grinned.

I clapped once to get everyone's attention, "Then let the festivities begin!"

And begin they did. Optimus lead Elita over to the ring toss. Everyone else dispersed to his or her various stations and to have fun and play games. I headed to my dunk tank, with my assistant Ratchet following me along. He was going to keep everything in order and such.

When we got to the tank, I stripped off my outer armor, leaving the softer stuff covering my protoform armor. I shimmied up the tank ladder and then settled myself onto the plank like thing that would drop me into the water, which was fucking cold my metal feet told me. I reached around back and snagged a cube of energon from my cooler, since the cold water would make my heating system burn energon faster says Ratchet, and took a sip as I waited for my first contender to approach.

It didn't take long.

My first contender happened to be Epps. Ironhide, who was chatting with some human at his feet, followed him. I waved, and took one last drink before setting it on a safe platform behind me. As I turned back, I grinned at Epps. "Hi Epps, you gonna try your luck at being the first to dunk me?"

He grinned at me as Ratchet handed him three balls. "Strider, I'm not going to try my luck. I _am_ going to dunk you. No luck needed." Epps chirped. He wound himself up like a base ball pitcher, and then let it fly.

"Ha! Nice try, Epps, but it ain't gonna happen!" I chuckled as he missed.

He stuck his tongue out determinedly and threw again. He missed once more.

"Come on, Ironhide could throw better then that!" I taunted. I got an indignant grumble from the big black behemoth mech.

He missed again and then sighed. "I never could toss well." Yup, with the whole orange smoke thing.

As Epps stepped back, Ironhide stepped up and held out his hand expectantly. He only accepted one of the mech-sized balls. "I'll only need one."

I leaned forward. "A little cocky aren't we?" I grinned. "You ain't gonna hit me."

"A little cocky aren't we?" he mocked. Ironhide shifted slightly, and then wound the ball up.

I let out a bark of laughter. "Come on now Ironhide, I know you can out shoot me any day, but I don't think you can throw half as well as you shoot."

"Think again." He let the ball fly.

Damn him, it hit the mark.

There was a bell chime noise, and then I hit the water with a splash. I sunk to the bottom, grimaced at the cold, and then being to lazy to swim; I pulled myself up on the latter that was installed so we could get in and out easier. When I got myself up to the top and got the seat in place, I scrambled up into it. "Cold!" I exclaimed and then downed the last of my energon from the safe point. "Damn you Ironhide!" I cursed.

"You sissy, it isn't that cold." Ratchet chirped as he went and collected the balls. Ironhide was standing with the humans still, and was laughing lightly at me.

I splashed him with my foot. "Isn't that cold my ass!" He rumbled and then reached over and smacked the target. I fell in but managed to catch myself on the ladder, with my head above the water. I let out a strangled shriek. "Oh God cold!"

It was several hours later, and many dunks in the cold water later for me, Epps finally got me, when my mother and father approached. Ratchet was still here, but he was relaxing and letting the Twins fetch the balls for the throwers. I had already splashed Ratchet several times, gotten dunked by him just as many times too, and now I was getting the twins. Sunstreaker had dunked me twice, good-naturedly of course, for me splashing him once. Sideswipe hadn't dunked me that way; he came behind me and shoved me gently off the board for splashing him.

I downed my energon cube and then waved. "Hi Papa, Hi Elita."

Elita eyed me slightly. "What the pit are you doing? You're going to get a virus!"

"Nope, Ratchet said I wont." I chirped. Ratchet gave a nod to agree. "You finally going to try and dunk me?"

Optimus chuckled at me. "Of course, we had to save the best game for last."

So when they were all settled, they threw their balls at me. I think they purposely missed, though they cut it close. Every time they almost got me I ended up flinching slightly. The water was damn cold. When they ran out of the throwing balls, Elita looked to Optimus. By now they had gathered a fair amount of humans watching them. Even Lennox was in the group of humans watching, he had also dunked me.

"Should I?" she asked. Should she what?

He cracked a smile for her. "You should." Elita strolled up to the target, leaving Optimus to be smiling at her from the throwing line.

I narrowed my eyes at her. "You wouldn't."

"I would." She hit the target, and I went in with a screech. Gah Cold!

When I surfaced, sputtering water, Elita had already strolled back and hugged Optimus with a laugh. I climbed out, and out of the tank completely because I had run out of energon for warming myself with. I took a few minutes to dry myself off, and strap my armor back on.

As I strolled back around the corner to the partygoers, I caught the last bit of the conversation between Will and Elita. "-eah, Nightstrider gave us the whole idea for the carnival thing, and kept us on track and stuff. Oh, and for the last thing, you can request one thing from anyone here." Ah, shit Will, why did you have to tell her I did most of it when that's not true? Okay, act like I heard nothing, act like nothing they said I heard.

When I made my way over, I was pulled into a tight three-way hug between my adopted parents and myself. I arched a brow and asked, "What's this for?"

Optimus rumbled happily. "For putting this together for us. It means a lot to us."

Elita nodded. "Yeah, it does."

It took a bit, but eventually we were back at our room. I had the chance to play a couple games, but then everyone started getting tired, so we all opted to retire for the night. Currently, Optimus was sitting on the bed, I was stretched across the couch, and Elita was approaching me.

"Lennox said that I could request anything from someone, correct?" She asked me as she came to stop in front of me. I sat myself up with a half groan.

I nodded. "Yeah, that's what he said."

"Then I want to ask you to do something for me."

"If it's to love the sparkling with everything I am even if it hates my guts then no, I cant do that." I said wryly. "If it's something else, then shoot, I'll see if it's doable."

"Nothing like that at all." Elita stated. I caught her sneaking a peak at Optimus, then her optics refocused on me again. "All I ask is one simple thing."

"Mmmhmm." I motioned her to continue.

"I want you to feel your sibling move."

I started slightly. "Isn't there anything else you could want me to do?" I asked after a moment.

She shook her helm. "No. This is what I want." She held out her hand expectantly.

You know, I was half tempted to slap her hand away, take my couch, yes mine I sleep on it enough to call it mine when I occupy it, and go sleep in the living room. The other half of me was too lazy to do that, and didn't want to hurt her feelings by doing so. I hefted a sigh as a flash of uncertainty went through her optics.

I gave her my hand and looked away from the both of them. "It wont move for me."

"You never know."

She moved it so it pressed to the distended armor of her stomach. I felt nothing. Not the slightest of flickers against my hand. "See, I told you it wouldn't move for me, so what was the poi-" I froze again. I felt a light tapping against my hand. Faint, very faint, but it was there.

In that split moment, I knew I could never fully hate my parents child, even when it takes me away from them.


	47. Possible Chance Of Kaboom

(_**Things have been hectic, and I'm going into school now in like a day and a half. I don't want to go, because it's majorly cutting down my ability to post chapters. That, and my mom hasn't been sharing the computer… grr…**_

_**So I'm really sore now, and I don't regret one moment of how I became sore. I rode the mechanical bull too much at state fair. How could I not, though? They had the original bull, with actual hide and open bouncy pad so you could enter and exit at any time! No stupid plastic bull, no barriers, and no non-grip!**_

_**I rode that thing more then thirty times, and a good ninety-five percent of the time I ended up riding with no hands. It was awesome ^_^. I got a couple free rides from the dude that owned it because I drew in business from people who wanted to try and best my no handed riding, and little kids who wanted to be 'cool'. Some random old people wanted me to ride for them, and paid for me to go on again as well.**_

_**IT WAS KICKASS!**_

_**Further more, I hope you all forgive me for the shortness of this chapter, I only had an hour to write this up and I hate having to pause my chapter because I can never remember my muse…**_

_**Things are moving, moving right along for this story. Next chapter I plan on it being longer then this, by a whole hell of a lot.**_

_**Thanks, Fav it, Alert it, review, and reread again if you wish!**_)

It's been another month now, and only two more are left until Elita delivers her sparkling. Not much has happened since the party, accept for the ever expanding of Elita's midsection and the progress of Wheeljack's MCR. I still sleep on the couch, but I occasionally go crash with the twins if I want to be away. I get urges to stay away sometimes, due to the half closed bond Ratchet says. Ratchet also said that the urges were just my sparks way of preparing myself for the possibility of being alone.

The twins didn't mind me sleeping with them one bit.

On the subject of the twins, they're still just as affectionate in their own quirky way, being blunt but kind of shy and all. Sideswipe even swiped a peck on the cheek a couple of days ago. Cheeky little ass got Sunstreaker to snatch one as well. I honestly don't mind, I think it's sweet. We also have started working out in the gym together; they got me doing an odd exorcize that works my arms and my knees. They have me hook a bench pressing bar in my toe claws and then I stand between two bars that are taller then me and I have to pull myself up into fetal position. It's fucking hard to do, but it works.

With Wheeljack, we changed the model back, because MCJ didn't rhyme as well as MCR. The model itself is finished, smooth and sleek, easily able to blend into my armor and folds down into my wings, but there are bugs in the system that have to be worked out, and can only be done when it's being operated by someone or attached to someone. A whole lot of bugs. One is that if I'm not constantly focusing on them, they will shift their pressures and end up making me spiral.

Speaking of Wheeljack, that's where I am now along with the twins. Wheeljack asked if I could bring them along for something; I don't know what just yet. I'm currently sitting here letting Wheeljack attach the final product for a couple test runs. He doesn't want me to keep them attached just yet, incase they decide that they want to go kaboom. If they go kaboom now, it'll be bad because of all the power artillery in them, and if they do, it'll be a fairly nasty explosion.

I twitched my door wings as Wheeljack finished connecting them to my central systems and then stood up. I stretched and then turned to him with a grin. "So, what are we gonna do today?"

Wheeljack motioned to the twins, "They are going to hold you down, and I'm going to tweak with the thrusters while you fire them up to full power." He moved and snagged some tools, then strolled from the lab. I scratched at my helm with a sigh and followed after, the twins both following after me.

"You know, babe" Sunstreaker drawled as he stepped up beside me and threw his arm across my shoulders. While Sideswipe calls me Princess, Sunstreaker sometimes calls me babe. I don't know why. "If you burn my paint, you get to redo it."

Sideswipe followed his brother's lead and tossed his arm across my shoulders so their arms overlapped. "Same here. I don't think a burnt red would look good on me."

I chuckled and moved their arms so we were locked at our elbows, in the we're-off-to-see-the-wizard style. "I don't mind, as long as you don't want something intricate drawn. I'm no good at that." And I had been practicing to some extent… okay; drawing in the sand doesn't really count.

"We know, Princess." Sideswipe chirped.

Sunstreaker gave a low whirr, and I looked to him to see what he wanted. "Any chance your not busy later?"

"I don't have anything planned, you should know this." I answered with a nod. I looked back to where Wheeljack was leading us. The weapons range. What…? Oh yeah, we have some government officials coming to give the place a once over, so we can't really experiment outside. The second best place is the weapons range, because it has a hell of a lot of space.

"Then would you mind modeling for us? We want to paint you." Sideswipe asked.

I blinked, but nodded. "I don't see why not. I don't mind. When do you want me there, and where do you want me?"

"Our room, as soon as possible." They both answered. I gave a laugh at the creepy twin thing.

"Alright." I agreed. "An hour after this is done okay for you?" they agreed.

"Okay!" Wheeljack called happily as he stopped us in the middle of the giant room. "Lets get started!"

"Wheeljack?" I called. "What's the chance that they're going to explode this time?"

"Less then seventy five percent!" Wheeljack chirped again as he set his stuff down and we got ourselves arranged how we needed to be for him to work on the thrusters that were attached to my door wings.

_Oh joy._


	48. In Which The Comfort Zone Is Void

(_**Okay, first day of school was both awesome and sucky. For one, the teacher whom I thought was the scariest thing there is actually so funny I almost wet myself, and another. Mr. Bra, my old weight lifting hardass teacher actually has a sense of humor. Yeah, it kind of scares me now, since he was cracking jokes in health class…**_

_**Hardass teachers shouldn't crack jokes… seriously…**_

_**Furthermore, I hope you're not all angry that I skipped the painting scene, because at their level of relationship it would be really boring to type out and read. I'll probably do one later, way later, that might possibly have some yummy spots in it.**_

_**So I'm just skipping to the next big event!**_

_**And I hope you all forgive me for not being able to post chapters as fast as normal… school schedule sucks ass…Review, fave it, alert it, or even read again! I do need someone to tell me if I already have Mirage here or not… I don't have enough time to go reading all the chapters again**_

_**Like Seriously… Honors English 10 gives me like, no life time to myself.**_

_**Fair warning… It is going to probably get much darker from here before it gets better.**_)

The groan of stressed hydraulics, the hiss of air escaping our intakes in heated pants and groans. My systems are hot, on the threshold of overheating. My armor is warm, steaming almost in the cool air of the gym, and the cold floor feels good to my aft. I scrunched my optics up with a jagged exhale. "Ouch." I hissed and inhaled sharply again.

Sideswipe, holding me sitting upright, said lowly, "Be gentler Sunstreaker!"

"I'm trying!" Sunstreaker panted. "It's hard though, trying to get her into this position when her hips don't want to bend like this!"

So roughly two months have passed, not much has happened. Elita has expanded in the abdominal area, defiantly bigger then I would have thought but that's probably because she's a smaller bot and is having the spawn of a behemoth. She's also become a real bitch in her final pregnancy days. I started sleeping in the living room again. Optimus had to join me a couple times on the couch… Not a whole lot of room on the damn thing when there's two big bots on it, let me tell you that.

She was bitchy enough that it tried to influence my mood through our half cut bond. So, I kind of emotionally block hers further, and Optimus's too since he can channel Elita sometimes, so all I feel is the fact that the bond is still there, but no more then that feeling.

The painting that the twins had wanted to do went well. Nothing exciting happened, save Sunstreaker asked where my Autobot symbol was. I showed, he both liked and disapproved. He said, quote unquote, "Babe, as incredibly sexy as that hidden symbol is, I'm going to have to ask you to put another one on, someplace less hidden, but still sexy. How about behind your audio receptor?" In the end, I did get a small Autobot symbol permanently etched behind my audio spike thing. I can hide it if need be, like if I'm faced with infiltration or something. But it's less hidden then my thigh one. And both twins seem to think they're both 'deliciously lick able.'

Yep, twins will be Twins.

With the MCR project, things are going well. The will be completely debugged next month, says Wheeljack. He also says that they're explosion proof now. I don't believe him, but lets let him have his fantasies for now. Anyways, I can now fly quite fast, and quite high, but the current bug we're on is the one that dislikes deceleration. It cuts the engine when I try and slow down. Not so good if you're a hundred or more feet in the air. Ratchet threw another hissy fit and almost glitched at the sight of what had become of Wheeljacks chassis from catching me. I prevented it by nailing him in the processor with a wrench.

A word to the unwise; Ratchet can throw. _Far_.

Anywho, currently I'm in the gym with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. They're helping me with the weight thing on my legs, and right now they're helping me stretch my leg cables so they wont kink up after the work out we just did, by bending my legs up one by one until they are vertical with my body. It was hell trying to get them to go like this, seeing as Transformers aren't built to be able to bend themselves in half. Transform into a seemingly impossible shape? Yes. Gymnastics? No.

Even as a human, I could barely touch my toes, but that had to do with the fact that my legs were way longer then my arms and my abdominal muscles didn't like to bend like that.

With a gentle groan, my leg slid up to bump against my head. "There." I panted. "The second one is up. Let me go now?" I questioned.

I was set down gently, and then helped to my feet where I wobbled like a newborn calf as my legs protested. The twins scooped me up, settling me so it was like I was being carried on a chair, or a throne, and I had my arms draped over the backs of their necks and they had one arm each holding my legs and ass.

"One hell of a work out, eh?" I chirped as they toted me into the cool down showers.

Sunstreaker chuckled. "That it was, that it was. We on for next week?" Once a week was the hard work out, the rest were ones that left us a lot less tired.

"Duh." I said with a chirp. Sunstreaker passed me to Sideswipe and then started working on the water. I grinned at him as he blinked cheerfully at me. "So, what are we up to next?"

"Well, I was thinking maybe we'd let you go visit Elita. She comm. linked us telling us to bring you to her. She says your blocking the bond and any communications to her." Sideswipe said. I hadn't even been aware I was blocking her further. "Why would you do that?"

I sighed as I was taken into the water and scrubbed gently down. When I ended up showering with the twins, which was quite often actually, they always insisted that they should scrub me down if they helped me get like that. The sneaky adorable tards even did it when they didn't make the mess. "Well," I started. "Elita is been really…"

"Bitchy?" Sunstreaker offered as he gently lathered up my helm with some gentle cleaning solution they had taken to subspacing for whenever they could jump me in the shower. Honestly, these bots could probably go into a salon business or something of the sort to Cybertronians. Ooh the image. Megatron with hair curlers sitting cross-legged under a giant hairdryer, reading the latest issue of Hot-topic.

I nodded lightly. "Yeah. It leaks through the bond, you know. It's hell when you suddenly feel your emotions go from being happy like now, to wanting to rip someone's face off."

"Or interface rod." Sideswipe quipped.

I flicked a cable in his arm lightly. "Your not letting that go, are you?"

"Not a shot in the pit." His brother snorted. "Sideswipe isn't going to let that down until you do something more horrid. Like kicking Prime in the cod piece."

Sideswipe winced against me. "Please don't. I wouldn't wish that on anyone accept Decepticons. You know that your claws are always partially out, right?" I glanced at my toes and wiggled them, seeing the points that did in fact stick out. Not enough to hurt anything unless I deliberately tried. Or an accidental kick.

"Ouch." I said.

Sunstreaker agreed. "Ouch indeed."

It was some time later that we were all done, I felt much better after being washed/massaged, and I had been dropped off at the door to my parent's room. I could hardly count it as our room anymore, seeing as I hardly slept in it as of recently. With a sigh, I slid open the door and stepped inside.

Elita, in all her swollen purple glory, was reclined on the bed and cast me a half scowl. "I wish you would stop blocking the bond, and it aggravates me that I cannot seem to be able to contact you ether."

I gave a quiet sigh and snagged a giant foldy chair type of chair, and then startled it when I was a couple feet from the bed. Folding my arms across the back, I leaned forward and rested my chassis on it and twitched my antenna and door wings. "So you needed me? What can I do for you?"

She gave me a grumpy rumble. "Is it so possible that I just wanted to be with my daughter? Hm?" she crossed her arms across her chassis and gave me the arched eye-plating look.

As I seem to get that look a lot lately, I'm immune to it for now. I simply sighed at her and raised a hand to rub my helm. "It is completely possible, but that's not the case, now is it?"

Elita sighed and shifted her gaze to stare at the wall. "Part of it." She closed her optics, "Another is because I wanted to ask you something, and since you do have medical information data packs in your processor I thought you would know."

I reached out with a sigh and settled my hand on her arm, but didn't open the bond. "I do know a fair amount. Ratchet seemed to send me everything. But I was only a part time assistant." I stated. She turned to look at me. "Why didn't you ask Ratchet?"

"Because I didn't want to bother him, he's been busy with something as of late…" She sighed. Elita was right, Ratchet had been doing something in the back of his med bay, out of sight to anyone else.

"Then tell me what's wrong, and I'll see what I can do about it." I said.

She laid a hand on her distended abdomen, and let a tired click some from her throat. "I've been feeling discomfort from my abdomen for a couple of earth hours now. It just keeps getting worse. I have these bouts of pain from my midsection…" She rubbed the plattings as they shifted tighter for a couple moments and then loosened.

To me, it sounded like the mid stages of labor. I sighed and dug around in my programming. Delivery, complications, drugs, drugs, injuries, more complications… Ah, Labor details. Yep, it all aligned with the things she was describing.

"How far apart are your pains?" I asked, and gently reached out to feel the position the sparkling was in. I couldn't feel much, but then and again, I'm not a full on medic. I haven't been trained to feel for things like this.

She gave a half grunt at my gentle probing. "A couple earth minutes apart, why?"

"Your well into labor." I stated. "You've had a sparkling before, shouldn't you have known?"

"That was long ago, and the file was corrupted by a virus. I only have memories of the sparkling after it was born." Elita said. I heaved a grunt and stood up. Moving the chair away, I walked back to Elita and scooped her up. She was a little heavy, but I could manage her. "What are you doing?" she choked.

"Taking you to the med bay. I have no desire to deliver the sparkling here." Elita gave a sudden groan. "What now?" I asked her as I walked to the door and attempted to get it open.

"You might not have a choice, I can feel it now." She grunted. "Put me back on the bed, I'm not having this sparkling in the hallways for anyone to gawk." I complied.

'_Whoa, oh god, Ratchet!_' I called over the comm. links.

'_Whaaaaat? I'm busy._' Came his snippy reply.

'_Yeah, well, I don't feel like delivering a sparkling, and Elita says it wants out, and like, now!_'

'_I'll get Prime. You have the programming, check how the sparkling is coming along._'

I blanched at the idea of looking at my mother's port and had to turn away from Elita for a moment to keep me from glitching on the spot. Just so… wrong… I wasn't cut out for the entire baby having shit, I'm a soldier, for gods sake, I shoot, kill, and cause mayhem! '_Did I not just say I wanted nothing to do with the delivery?_'

God I'm such a pansy. I can face down Decepticon warriors, but I cant handle birthing a baby. Okay, my adopted mothers baby, but that makes it an entirely different situation!

'_You did, but we're ten minutes away. How long do you think she'll last before the sparkling crowns?_'

"Oh Primus!" Elita suddenly howled. "It hurts!"

'_Not long…_' I shuddered.

'_Jolt is bringing towels, but he doesn't have the sparkbirthing programming._' He sent me an encouraging chirp. '_Do it and make your teacher proud._'

I heard the door slide open not a moment later. Jolt slipped in, shut it firmly behind him, and then flinched as Elita sent him a scathing look. I shook myself suddenly and then snagged the towels. "Alright, looks like I have to do this." I shuddered again and then slipped onto the bed between Elita's legs, which she had parted from her usual single leg style. I draped one of the huge transformer sized towels over her lower half and then looked to Jolt. "Okay, so what do you know?"

"Nothing." He stated. Great… that means I'm in charge… wonderful.

"Jolt, then would you please slip behind Elita and hold her up? I need her to be as anchored upward as possible." When he moved, and Elita begrudgingly allowed him to touch her, I then said, "Perfect, keep her there. Mom?" Elita looked at me. "I am going to be a bit mentally scarred here, and will probably never be able to look at you without a twitch, but I'm going to have to deliver your sparkling."

"That's fine." She breathed. "That's perfectly fine. I think it'll help you both bond more." Again with the bonding… "Oh Pit! I can feel it against my codpiece!"

I gave a grunt and then leaned in and unclasped her codpiece. Oh sweet merciful heavens! "EW! Oh gross. Oh nasty. Oh slimy. Oh there's the head." I mumbled. Right there, nestled in her port, was a head that was identical to Elita's, though it was in a soft baby blue that foretold what color the sparkling would be once it grew armor.

"Okay, I need you to force it out." I said to her as my optic twitched. Oh, gross! I soo need… I don't know! EW! Some sort of fluid ran over my hand. "Push or something."

She pushed. "Oh Primus!" like expelling a watermelon I had been told once.

I placed my hand against the head as it started to move slowly outwards, and then clasped my other hand around a towel. I pulled the towel up, clumsily unfolded it, and then situated it so the sparkling would slide out onto it in my hands.

"Again." I stated. She pushed. I could see up to the forehead now, and it looked like it would be the most adorable sparkling anyone would have ever seen.

I heard the door slide open.

"Harder Elita, come on, you can do it." She shoved harder, and the head slid out along with the shoulders. And another slide of liquid. Major gag factor here. Oh gross. "One more. Maybe." Elita gave a sharp angry cry and then the sparkling was calmly slid into my hands. It was tiny, so very small. Maybe a couple feet long or so.

And you know what? It was a light blue color, but it blinked its optics open at me in the most adorable way. I stood up and off the bed so I could wrap the sparkling in dryer towels.

I noticed that Ratchet was there, standing with his arms crossed and looking happy. Jolt, who had seemingly switched placed with Optimus, looked relieved to be away from the she-devil that was Elita. I quickly handed the sparkling to Ratchet.

"I need to go clean myself off." I stated as the sparkling was handed off. And I'd probably almost vomit…

When I got back from the showers, where in I had learned that transformers can indeed vomit as I had lost my energon down the drain, I found Optimus and Elita cuddled on the bed, holding the sparkling gently between them. I peeked open the bonds, and could feel the love and devotion they had to the sparkling.

Elita looked up at me. "Please, come see the miracle you helped bring into this world."

Optimus rumbled with pride and love, and offered a leg for me to sit on. I took the offer, and he brought me closer so I could actually see the little thing. All cleaned up, it was still light blue, and looked to be happily gurgling at Elita and Optimus. "Meet your little brother, Leo."

Leo seemed to have just realized that I was there, because he clicked at me. I blinked and clicked once softly back at him. "Hello, little one." I said to him. "It's good to see you out in the world."

He scrunched up his face at me and I sighed. "Try reaching out to him with your spark." Optimus suggested. I tried, and I could faintly feel him through Optimus's and Elita's bonds. It started out going good.

"Yeah," Elita cooed to Leo. "That's your big sister, she helped bring you into this world, little one."

Suddenly he let out the most obnoxious wailing noise. It startled me so much I jolted slightly. And then came the ripping feeling. Leo's sparkling conscience rushed over my bonds, ripping, tearing, and shredding what was left of the half bonds.

My spark gave a lurched, electricity surged through me from the short bond with Leo along with my spark and then he severed his bond, and I fell backwards onto the ground with a thunk, scrambling backwards with the surges until I hit the wall and my processor clicked off. Everything went dark.

_I mentally scar myself probably for life, and I get abandoned by the very thing I went out of my comfort zone to bring to the world. Primus must truly love fucking with my life._


	49. Acceptance In It's Purest Form

(_**PLEASE READ:**_

_**Okay, so again, sorry for the long update waits, but school kicks my ass. And sorry for the short chapter, but it was hard to write, seeing as this all kind of drilled itself into my very heart.**_

_**Besides, the it allows me a small bit of a time skip.**_

_**Further more please go to the profile of a good friend, Zayren Heart , and go read the one shot she did for GIBTH. It's called Shelter, and is a song fic based off of the song Shelter by Hedley.**_

_**I hope this chapter is good for ya'll, because it was hard to write, emotionally wise.**_

_**Oh, and when you read this, Listen to Tim McGraw's if Your Reading This. I cried writing this chappie to that song. I cried a lot.**_)

I awoke sometime later, in the med bay again. I seemed to wake up here a lot, it seems. The first thing I was aware of was the feeling of being alone. Physically I could sense Ratchet putting about at his desk, just Ratchet was here though. In my spark, I felt a deep depressing emptiness that ached and pulsed with longing and grief at the loss of my bonds. It hurt, the feeling of loss. It was just like I had felt when I lost my mother; accept then I had other family to support me.

Now I have no one.

Imagine losing your family, but they're still there, right in front of you. It hurts, more then you probably can understand. Now I'm sure there are some humans out there that know what I'm talking about, or at least to some extent. My spark felt torn, betrayed, abandoned, though my processor knows I wasn't. Or at least not by my parents.

Err… ex-parents.

I feel hurt, and with every right, I also feel angry. Pissed, actually. Leo made me lose my family, all because I'm not related by blood, or something like that. It… greatly disturbs me that I feel like this. Like I could probably hurt him if I had the chance, or major drive to do so. It's wrong. So wrong.

I feel angry that the Sparkling pretty much signed my death certificate for me. That I haven't even been alive again for half a decade, and I have to die again for the third time… Only this time I don't think I'll be coming back. But that's okay. I might get to see my mama. I hope I do. I miss her, even more so now. What I wouldn't give to be able to talk to her, just once more. Maybe settle my spark just a bit.

I opened my eyes and slowly sat myself up with a hiss from my hydraulics. "Good to see that you're finally awake." Ratchet quipped. "You were out for a while, a day and a half." He said.

"I see." I rumbled. I heaved a sigh. "How are they?"

"Who?" Ratchet questioned as he put something away and turned to look at me. Shouldn't he…? Well, I suppose it's really a general question; I could be asking about the twins, ether set, or the humans.

My family. "Optimus, Elita, and their sparkling." I said.

"Remarkably healthy. A little stress from the severed bonds, but nothing much else. Leo is an exceptionally happy young mech." Ratchet rumbled. Walking forward, he took his rolly chair and took a seat next to my bed. "How are you?" He questioned as he rested his head on his palm.

I smiled tightly as I swear I felt a small piece of me die inside. "That's good that they're doing great. As for myself, I'm still me." 'For now' was left unsaid. "Not good, not bad. Kind of leap-frogging between the two." I admitted.

"Alright." Ratchet nodded. "Let me know if that changes, alright?"

Well, since we have the agreement, he is the one who has to put me down if I become a danger. Maybe I wont, I don't know. I hope I don't, because that would suck ass…

"Alright?" Ratchet prompted.

I nodded at him. "Sorry, thinking to myself. Yeah, I'll let ya know if something major comes up." I glanced about. "Am I free to go?"

"Let me take one look at your spark. I haven't checked on that scar for a while to see if it's been healed." Ratchet got himself standing up, stretched, and then reached for my chest plates. I arched myself up so he could see better, and then simply slid the armored plattings back so he could look.

He gently opened up my spark chamber, and I shivered at the air that rushed in, cold to my warm spark. He hummed. "The scar is healing nicely. Your spark however, is showing signs of distress, and though that's probably normal for a situation like this, I want you to be careful. No pains from the scar as of late, I presume?"

"Nah, no pains at all." I said. Save the ache from being alone, but that's another barrel of monkeys to delve into later.

He made a couple of clicking noises and then let me close back up. He straightened, and Ratchet gave me a soft pat on the shoulder. "Your good to go." After a moments hesitation, he asked, "Where will you be recharging?"

I shrugged. "I don't know. I was gonna ask if I could crash with the twins until I could ask Pa- Optimus to arrange a room for me." Gingerly, I slid myself around and dropped my feet to the floor. As I went to stand, a hand on my shoulder again stopped me briefly.

"If you need to, the med bay is always open for you." Ratchet said seriously to me. I reached up and clapped my hand over his and gave him the simplest smile I could.

"If I need to, I will." I agreed. Then I frowned. "Ratchet? Can I request one more thing to be added to the agreement?"

He nodded slowly. "Sure."

I gazed up at the taller yellow colored mech and gave a long exhale. "I want to be buried or disposed of or whatever in Oregon when you have to… you know. Somewhere in a forest."

He nodded. "Any particular reason why?"

I gave him a secret solemn look. "It is my favorite place on Earth." I gently removed his hand and stood. It's peaceful there. Quiet, if you know where to go. Perfect, almost. In some places, it's seemingly untouched by humans." I sighed. "I think it's fitting." I stated.

"You don't know that it'll be soon though. It could be sometime in the future, several thousands of years from now." Ratchet stated.

"Or I could snap tomorrow, or any of the days between now and infinity." I stated. I slipped passed Ratchet after giving him a pat on the arm. I walked to the door, and then I pivoted slightly and gave him a light smile. "That would be a miracle, don't get me wrong." I gave him tired look and laid a hand against my chassis. "Ratchet, honestly, everything dies at some point. Death is unavoidable. When I have to go, then it is my time to have to join the well of all sparks, even if I myself aren't ready." I dropped my hand to my hip and propped it there. "If I lose my mind, Ratchet, it's going to be better for me to join the well before I do something bad."

I turned and left then. I headed to Optimus and Elita's room. It didn't take me long to get there. I paused, and listened closely. It was only Optimus in there; he was scrawling something on a data pad. I rapped on the door softly.

"Come in." He rumbled loudly but tiredly.

The door slid open as I opened it, and then I stepped in gently. Optimus turned from his seated position on a desk. Nothing in the room had been changed; the couch I slept on was still there, the bed, the desk. The couch was the reason I had come here. I was going to move it out of there, so that the message that I was separating myself was clear.

Leo absolutely wouldn't like me staying anyways.

Optimus dropped the Data pad on the desk, and then had moved from his chair and scooped me up quickly. I was pulled close to him, high enough up that my feet didn't touch the ground and I could probably become a limp noodle and still not touch; I could feel the rumble in his chassis, and the pulse of his spark as it beat beneath me. I could have cried. I couldn't feel him, but I could at the same time. Torture. Pure torture.

"Oh my sweetspark." Optimus crooned and rocked me. I did nothing, I didn't hug him back, nor did I push him away. "I'm so sorry. This shouldn't have happened."

"No, it shouldn't." I agreed quietly. "But it did."

"We're still a family though. I will always be here for you." He said. "Always."

I felt energon welling in my optics, and squeezed them shut. "I am always there for you too." I said. I felt a figurative knot form in my throat, and if I had been human I wouldn't have been able to say it. "But we can't be a family."

He took me over to the bed and sat me down next to him. Optimus narrowed his optics at me and gently took my much smaller hand in his behemoth one. "Family is always family."

"Accept when I would be the one to cause problems with your sparkling, Optimus." I didn't miss the wince Optimus had when I used his name instead of calling him Papa like usual. "I can't be part of a family that has my sibling hating me. I can't. And I cant run the chance of hurting one of you if I lose it." I shook my head and looked up at him. One small drop of Energon rolled from my optic, no matter that I didn't want it to. "You will always be my Papa, no matter what happens." He would be my papa in the afterlife too.

He pulled me to him again and this time he pressed my head to his neck cables. "You will always be my daughter, no matter what you or anyone else says." He pulled me back and made me look up into his face. His hand, large and warm, held my face tenderly and he gave me the most grief-ridden look I had seen up close. His optics, soft and gentle blue, wise with age, and kind with love, gazed at me as if he could form the bond again just by will alone. "We'll work this out. I promise."

I reached up and touched the hand on my face. "Papa, some things cant be worked out. Your sparkling doesn't want me, and I cant be the one to force it. I wont." I gently pulled away and then stood. Walking to the couch, I took a breath. "As I am not part of your family anymore, I will remove the couch from your home and I request that I might be able to get a room if we have one we can spare."

I heard Optimus's hydraulics whine, and then he cleared his throat. "I would rather you didn't. The couch is nice in here, and we have another one coming in soon anyways." He let out a couple clicks, then said, "You are always welcome here, know this. We have a room, but it's being fixed up. Wheeljack tried to fix something in there." With Wheeljack it's self explanatory what happened.

"I know, Optimus." I said. Then I inhaled. "I'll go and let you finish your work." I headed to the door.

"Where will you go?" he asked.

I paused. "I'll probably ether be in the med bay, or I might stay with the twins for a night or two. Depends on what happens." I sighed. "Right now… I'm going to go crash with the twins." I left then, and headed for the twins rooms. I passed the med bay again, informed Ratchet that I would be rooming with the twins for the night, with or without their permission for now.

When I made it to their room, it was empty, but the one big blanket that draped over the bed usually was curled back, as if waiting for me to get there. I ended up just climbing onto the gargantuan bed and curling into a quivering ball under the sheet. I settled my head in between the pillows, like how I usually sleep in their bed, and then just let myself curl tighter.

That was hard. So hard. It hurt, like I just killed another part of me. I have the feeling, now, that every time I see them, Optimus, Elita, and Leo, that a little bit of me will die. A little bit, every single time. Eventually, I'll probably end up just a husk of who I am. I'd seen it as a human. Some soldiers lose themselves, become nothing but tools to be controlled.

The only thing now that I have left to live for is Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. Sure, I'm a good friend with the humans, but lets face it. Humans easily forget, or they push it away. I know. I had done it too. If they didn't see me for some time, I would become something strange to their routine if I came back. My family is gone from my spark, but not my life, and that makes it all the harder.

While I know that my death is unavoidable, it's approaching like a freight train actually, and that I've accepted it, I don't plan on letting myself give up easily. I'll hang onto my sanity until I cannot any longer, and then, I'll allow myself to be killed. Or, if I become a danger to the other Autobots. Then… then that too, I'll let myself be taken care of. Sitting here though, isn't going to take my mind off it. I'll work myself harder, to exhaustion, and then I'll rest. I'll keep busy, and then my mind can't wander. But I'll start that probably tomorrow. Today is the day I can mope and shit.

I heard the door slide open. I shook a little harder.

I felt arms slide around me on both sides, and I let myself uncurl. I went to say something, to explain why I was here, but Sunstreaker shushed me. "Shh, we know, babe, we know." I let out another tremor.

"Ratchet told us, Princess. We're fine with you staying with us, if you're willing to room with us permanently. That'll save the other room for Mirage. He's due to land in a month or so." Sideswipe informed me. I let out another involuntary tremor. "Easy Princess." Sideswipe cooed. I was facing Sunstreaker, so I felt rather then saw Sideswipe gently rub my sides and door wings.

"We're here babe. Your not alone." Sunstreaker said. He moved a bit, and I took the opportunity to wrap my arms around his waist/chassis area and bury my face in his neck cables. He made a slight sound, something that sounded like 'paint', but softly ran a hand over my helm.

I let out an involuntary choked noise. God damn it, stop you stupid body!

I felt them both rumble, but it was Sideswipe who spoke to me. "Princess, go ahead, we're here for you. Let it out. We know it has to hurt." I felt tears well up and leak out. I felt them both grab me securely, tightly, and with a grip that said they weren't leaving until they were forced too.

Today, today is a day to cry out all the pains in out sparks. To know we're alone, but not. To know, that while we are still alive, we are slowly dieing deep inside.

Tomorrow would be when this would be bottled up and buried.


	50. Sweet Little Nothings

(_**Thank you all for your patience and reviews, it gives me great joy to let you all read this, however short it is. I kinda needed a bit of a break from the norm, and if your just a little bit perceptive, then you can tell what's going to happen in the future!**_

_**It is short, really short I know, but it's also necessary. It tells how fast things will progress, and how she might change, for the better or the worse, I don't know.**_

_**Getting darker, isn't it? And it can only get worse before it gets better~**_

Thank you to Zayren Heart for the One-shots she did, and the one she's doing! Err, did. They will both be posted on my profile, so go take a peek when ever ya'll like!

OMG FIFTY CHAPTERS WOOT!)

My fists hit the punching bag, my claws tore at the face of the Decepticon I had drawn on there so long ago. It already had bits of its insides peeking out through slash marks I had made the previous minutes ago. My legs swung around, my toe claws slitting in a motion that would have rendered a human in half, and would have possibly gutted a Decepticon.

It felt good to hurt the punching bag. It was wonderful, to hurt something without actually hurting it. It was a terrifying feeling. I never want to hurt anything, save the mini twins on occasion and Decepticons.

It's been a week. A long, tiring week. Long, because I am alone in my spark, in my mind, but I am physically surrounded by bots and humans who care. Tiring, because I've been confronted several times by Elita, with her nagging me about the fact that I wont stay with them as a family, even though every time I am in the same room as Leo, he starts up his unholy shrieking.

I've tried to shove it away; I really have, but its like trying to say that I'm okay when I've lost my leg or an arm. People give me sympathetic looks, or say things to me that bring it crashing back at full force, even when they don't mean to do so.

Tiring, because I hear things now, in the back of my processor, and I see things out of the corner of my optics. They talk, they laugh, they shout, they mock. They whisper little nothings in my ears, telling me things I could do. Things I could hurt people with. They degrade me, they infuriate me. It hurts, it hurts so much.

The worst part is, the voices are all belong to my Human mother.

"You are nothing without them! Weak! Pathetic!" She says to me. "Hurt them, harm them, and make them pay!"

I haven't told Ratchet, partly because I can usually deal with the voice myself. I tune it out, or tell it to go away. It never does, but it makes me feel a little bit better to know I can still resist its words, and demands, the images they send me, ones that sicken me to the point I want to purge my tanks. Ratchet says that the progression of insanity is usually quickened by stress, but sometimes, a fair amount he had seen, it didn't take but a few days to start feeling the affects.

Images flood my mind, views of my human family dead, with me ripping them apart piece by piece, occasionally flinging them into the air, juggling them, and then shoving a claw up and out their mouths. The twins, impaled on a couple spikes with me literally eating their sparks out, one at a time as they slowly watch and die, their sweet screeches of anguish sung such a saccharine lullaby to my ears.

My father chained to a ceiling, as I slowly pull off his limbs and shred them with my claws. I saw myself reaching up and planting a daughterly kiss on his cheek, and hugging him around the neck, only to suddenly find myself wrenching his head from his shoulders and chucking it away only to dig around inside his body to crush his spark.

Little Leo, sitting in my arms giggling and happy, with me smiling and happy, in a pile of dead carnage. Then my face would darken into a twisted smile, and I watched the image as I leaned down and bit his head off with my teeth.

My vocal chords gave a loud roar; I twirled and backhanded the punching bag hard enough the chain holding it creaked ominously. As it slowed in its rapid swinging, I went ridged, threw my head back and let out the loudest mechanical roar I could.

I whirled around and stalked to the showers, my claws sliding back in on a reflex. I stepped in and turned it onto cold, and let it cool me down as I flopped down on my aft and curled my knees up to my chassis and hugged them to me. I sat there, in a kind of fetal position, just letting the icy water run over me and through my armor, cooling off over heated circuitry and cables.

Out of the corner of my eyes, I could see something small, a short blurry figure that disappeared as I tried to look at it fully.

"Oh honey, we know it hurts," My mothers voice crooned softly. It was that tone, though it had a hidden insanity that just brushed the surface, that I remembered so well from my mother. "But it will all go away, if you only-"

"No." I murmured. "I wont hurt them. No. Not my family."

The voice pulled a one eighty turn. "But they're not your family, now are they?" She hissed.

"Neither are you." I shot back. The voice forced a new image into my head, standing out like a beacon. It was horrid, to horrid to share. I rolled to my knees and with a nasty noise, emptied my tank down the drain, the brightly colored energon rolling down my faceplates and mixing into the water as it slipped silently down the drain. I stood myself up and gave myself a shake as I turned the water off, letting rivulets of water roll down my frame. "Now go crawl back into your corner and die." I hissed and wiped my mouth with a spare rag that was lying around.

"Now, now," it chirped. "I can't go and do that, leaving you all alone. Oh wait, I can. Your already alone." That was a low blow, and even it seemed to know it. I gave a wince as I left the gym, turning on my heels to head outside and away from everyone.

I wanted to go back to the twin's room, well, technically ours since they pretty much don't let me leave to sleep anywhere else, and maybe try and catch a nap. Sleeping though, doesn't do well unless one of the twins is there, or someone else baby-sits. Unless someone is there, then the voice invades my dreams, tormenting my mind with images, false lusts, false wants. The worst part of the dreams though, is that the false things feel so real. Like I really was shoving my hand through the sparkling, lapping happily at its life-blood. Like I enjoyed the taste of my fathers spark, as I slowly cut it to pieces, eating it as I went along.

Horrid, horrid things I could feel, and the part of me that made the voice wanted more of the carnage, destruction, rage, and hatred.

As I walked out of the building and onto the tar mat, I caught sight of the Lennox family, who came for a short visit. I gave a short wave to little Annabelle, who waved back energetically. I then continued on my way, twitching my wings at the figure in the corner of my optics that followed my every move.

As I was walking into the main building, I caught sight of something that brought my mothers voice back into my consciousness. Optimus feeding Leo, in the same way he had fed me, not so long ago.

"It would be so easy." She whispered in the back of my mind. "They wouldn't know until it would be too late, to late to do anything." She purred. "Just walk up, all normal like. Then strike."

I twitched, narrowed my optics and then forcefully stalked away when I felt my claws twitch at the thought that my voice pushed into my mind.

I walked along to the room I shared with the twins, and then entered. The twins were on their break, and had been lounging on the bed, sleeping. I quietly slipped up, and then crawled up along until I was where I usually slept. The blanket was off, so it was just us on the bed.

The twins opened their arms and pulled me down. I was tucked to Sideswipe, with Sunstreaker pressed behind me. Seemingly in their sleep, they knew something was bothering me, so they began mumbling sweet little nothings in my ears, sleepy ones albeit, but swill sweet ones.

The only thing that ruined it, was the temporarily fading voice that was mocking them in a similar tone of voice.

"Easy, love." They tiredly murmured. I don't even think they realized just what the hell they were saying. "Sleep, we're here."


	51. Pompous Puff Ball

(_**Thank you all, really. Three hundred and twenty eight reviews, and only fifty chapters done! I have so far to go still!**_

_**Special shout out to Zayren Heart and so many others that if I named every single one of them, then the AN would be several pages long!**_

_**I hope you all like how this is unveiling, cause it's really stressful but hella fun to write for a crazy bot~ Enjoy, review, and let toss out a few idea's you'd like to see in the future chapters!**_)

I volunteered to go and retrieve Mirage, as it's been roughly three weeks give or take a day or two, seeing as he too was landing somewhere in Oregon, only it was towards Lake Foster, which was a lake I had gone swimming in many a time. Lake Foster wasn't actually a lake; it was more or less a reservoir created by the Foster Dam, located not far outside of Sweet Home, home of the inbreeding families. I had a couple friends from there; they said you had to be careful whom you screwed, because it was probably your cousin.

Really fucked up town if I say so.

I have many memories of Foster Lake. This is where I taught my cousins to swim, and where my grandparents' dog saved me when some huge ass fish dragged me under the surface. I don't know what type it had been; only that it had been big. This was also where I learned how to first swim, my own mama had taught me well.

I haven't spoken privately, like father to daughter, to Optimus since I had to break the news to him I had to let them go. I was always with others, and I was usually formal about it. Optimus was no longer Papa. He was Prime, since I was no longer family. The other bots seem to know this too, but they don't treat me any different. I'm still their Primes daughter, whether or not the bond was broken. I don't really give a shit ether way, how they treat me or don't. I've tapped into my hard ass military woman again, and keep that face up until I get alone with the twins.

The twins… They are wonderful to me, and I do not deserve them at all. They stay with me, and always subconsciously reassure me or say things in their sleep. They even will gently rest their arms over my shoulders, or thread our arms together in the 'we're off to see the wizard' style if we're not doing much. They seem to know that I need- _need_- gentle, casual, and sometimes not casual touches to keep myself calmer and less tense. Smug bastards also love to cuddle with me at night.

The voice hasn't really done much new; talked, and talked my audio receptors numb, yes. Give me put downs yes, and the occasional dark thought of hurting someone, yeah. Send me pictures that have on several occasions made me regurgitate my energon in the shower, yes that too. Always when I'm in the shower and alone. Mama's voice says its because it doesn't want anyone to know just yet, that it tries to make me crazy. I've taken to drinking less energon, to lessen the amount I lose when I end up purging it in the showers.

To my credit, I only snapped once, and that was at the mini twins. I didn't get accused of losing my mind when I literally beat them with their own arms. Ironhide does it all the time, so Ratchet said that it was a matter of time before someone else picked up the habit. I'm not too thrilled about it… but I guess when they used some sort of wax to make the floors super slick and impossible to stand on in one dead end hallway, that they deserve it. Especially when you get an eight bot pile up. I got stuck in the middle, and damn it, Wheeljack is heavy!

Speaking of mister 'Teehee, lookie at my new awesome invent- boom!', he has made a hell of a lot of progress on the MCR's. In a couple of days, I'm supposed to take them for their final test flight, to make sure that all the bugs are done and gone. Then the sweet pair of flying tools are all mine! While I don't have seeker wings, I do in fact have more maneuverability in my little door wings then the seekers do, which can be both a blessing and a curse. If I twitch my wings the wrong way, I can spiral out of control, it happened on a test run and made me face plant into the sand.

Note to self, sand tastes like shit to robot tongues.

So we were already here at the lake, this time I got stuck with Prowl and Jazz. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were needed for something else, something I'm not sure of what it is yet. Anyways, I play the role of the commanding medical officer for this little team, and as it happens, when it comes to field orders, a medical officer can order everyone, even a Prime within reason, to do what ever is needed. I don't do that really, I just kind of let them do their own little thing, and I do mine. Honestly Prowl scares me. His horns that always make it seem like he's glaring at you…

It's kind of awkward, like really awkward. Seeing as I'm female, and have female's intuition, I can sense the fact that there is some major sexual tension between the two of them. Jazz had said that they were supposed to have gotten spark mated, but had to go separate ways. I haven't really talked to Prowl, due to the fact I had stated in the paragraph above. That, and he didn't really interact with me unless absolutely necessary.

So here I sat, with my knees curled up into my chassis and my arms wrapped around my knees. Between my spread door wings rested the bark of an old gnarled Douglas Fir tree, and the soft green grass of the late summer's night tickled my sensitive wiring as it wheedled between my armoring. My toes were gently settled in the lake, the cool water rippling around them and gently cooling my sensors. The lake itself was aglow from the light of the half moon that currently occupied the sky. The stars shined brightly, with no clouds obscuring them from view.

It was peaceful, so wonderfully quiet and peaceful with the voice actually being silent for now.

Prowl stood not to far away, watching for any signs of human life. We were currently on the far end of the lake, where no humans lived within a good ten, fifteen-mile radius. Jazz was standing shin deep in the water, or for humans it would be a little bit over their heads, scanning the stars for Mirages comet, which is due to enter the atmosphere soon. From there, it would take only a couple minutes for him to land, and from what Prowl had briefly muttered, Mirage would be landing about a quarter of a mile from the Lake shore.

"So peaceful. Lets fuck it up, shall we?" The voice chirped quietly from the back of my mind. If I was with other bots, usually it was shoved back so I could hear them and respond better. Sometimes it doesn't though.

I sighed and dropped my head down onto my arms with a not so quiet clang. My optics drifted shut, and I mumbled quietly enough that the other bots couldn't hear me. "Go away damn you. I don't want you here. Go back to your corner."

It chuckled in a way that sent my mothers voice singing painfully through my processor. "Of course, love, of course. Take your peace for now. But I'll be back later." And I felt it retreat again.

I heard Jazz splash back up towards me from the lake, and then his steps as he approached. He set a gentle hand on my shoulder, and I raised my head and opened my optics to look at him. "He's entered the atmosphere. Mirage 'll land in a couple of minutes, Lil lady. You got your med kit ready?"

I nodded with a long sigh. "Yeah, it's in my subspace. I actually got spare armor bits for if I need to weld something." I said.

Jazz gently knelt and set a hand on my head, slightly squishing my antennas. "Good for you, kiddo." He gave me a perceptive look, the deep aqua blue that was his visor glinting in a way that portrayed what his optics themselves actually were looking at. "Care tah tell me what's eating your processor?" he asked. Jazz settled down slightly, his hydraulics in his leg shifting and hissing like a well-oiled powerhouse engine.

I flicked my antennas against his palm, and he moved enough I was comfortably free. "Lots of things." I said.

He gave me a laugh. "Way tah be cryptic there, Lil lady." He then sighed. "Tell me one thing?"

"I don't really want to talk about it Jazz."

"Just one and ah will leave you alone." Damn Jazz and his persistence.

I shifted and unwrapped myself. Jazz stood and offered me the hand that had been on my head, which I took and let the smaller mech pull me to my feet. For being three feet smaller, the little silver saboteur is strong. He hauled me easily to my feet, where upon I brushed off any lingering vegetation.

"Sure." I said as I straightened and looked skyward. Faintly in the distance I could see something approaching. I glanced back down to Jazz, my blue optics settling on his. I blinked a couple times then looked away with a sigh. "Jazz, can I ask you something first?" Maybe I could get Jazz and Prowl to go talk, so I could drop the subject. Yeah, that should work.

"Sure." He shrugged and looked to the sky. I caught sight of Prowl slightly paying attention to what we were doing. The black and white police mech was turned slightly to face us, but his eyes still scanned the area.

I rocked slightly on my hips, and propped a hand on my hip. "Do you fear death?"

"Everyone fears death to some extent." Jazz answered.

I nodded. "Good answer. In my opinion, everything dies at one point or another. I don't fear death." I said honestly. "What I fear is losing everyone dear to me." I caught Jazz glancing over at Prowl. I smiled internally.

"What brought that up?" He asked.

With a dry smile upon my lip plates, I said slowly so it didn't seem like I was pulling it out of my ass, "I believe that you should take every moment you can with the ones you love, 'cause you never know when it'll be your last."

He arched an eyebrow plating at me. "Take your own advice, yeah?"

I gave a snort and gave him a small light humored shove against his shoulder. "You know what I'm getting at, don't ya?" I waved at Prowl. "I know you heard too."

"Indeed." Prowl grunted.

I sighed. "It's awkward being the third party here, with all your sexual tension." I gave a laugh at the looks on their faces.

"Now lil' Lady, you shouldn't be-"

The comet that is Mirage sailed over us and started its path through the forest. I gave a bark of half humored laughter and took off after it. I streaked through the familiar breed of trees that are the Douglas fir, occasionally an oak, walnut, or noble fir among others would pass me. It took a bit, mainly because I wasn't in the mood to full on sprint, but I got there. The trench was short, but fairly deep. Down further, was a dark silver shape that was in the midst of a transformation, but it looked as if its wrist was bothering it.

I walked to the edge as the bot that was Mirage stood up and gently fingered his wrist. "You know," I drawled, "it would be best if you let me look at that before you screw it to high heaven."

Mirage whirled and his arm transformed into a type of rifle I'm guessing. He clicked something at me in Cybertronian.

"Calm your self." I stated. I showed him my thigh Autobot marking. "Not a con, but I don't speak Cybertronian." He clicked at me again. "Ether learn English, or we're going to have a serious problem here." I drawled again. Reaching down, I subspaced my medical kit and settled it into one hand.

Prowl and Jazz arrived a moment later, and Prowl walked calmly down into the trench and set into some sort of long discussion with Mirage as Jazz stood guard for now. Damn the language I don't seem to speak. After a moment, Mirage put his gun away.

I silently slipped down into the trench and approached him. Mirage allowed me to take his wrist, and then I looked at it. There wasn't too much damage; a couple cracks in the main frame and some wiring damage. I took out my tools and set to work.

"Ai, ai, ai, chika, must you be so rough?" A Spanish tinged voice sounded from the mech I was working on.

"Shush, your not the one working on wiring." I stated.

He gave me a snort. "And what is your designation, femme?"

"First off, it's rude to ask some ones name without giving your own." I stated.

"Forgive me, I am the handsome Autobot Mirage." He said. "It is a pleasure," sarcasm, "to make your acquaintance."

"Indeed." I said. "Nightstrider."

"Lovely."

OOOh, he is an ass! A pompous ass!


	52. Yes!

(_**Thank you all for the reviews, the favs, and the alert additions~**_

_**Speaking of Alert, what do you all think about Red Alert joining the GIBTH crew? I'll probably bring in Hound too, but they wont be major characters. Probably get Nightstrider in trouble with Red Alert though, via a nice little prank.**_

_**Idea's are welcome always!**_

_**Extra thanks to Zayren Heart, my brain twin, and my grounding that keeps me here and working on GIBTH!**_

_**Ps, I also know that Mirage is probably a lot OOC, but that's because I don't really know the character, seeing as I don't particularly like him much. He's an ass to the humans in the game, so I'm making him an egotistical proverbial ladies mech and an ass. I kinda think he'd be a noble, so I think he wouldn't be used to the word no or rejection.)**_

Tap.

Click.

Scrape.

Tap.

Click.

Scrape.

Tap.

Click.

Scrape.

Tap.

Click.

Scrape.

The annoying rhythm came from my right toe claw as it tapped impatiently on the hard concrete that made up the walls. My upper half was stretched across Sunstreaker, who was sitting on the floor with my upper half in his arms and lap. Sunstreaker was sweetly stroking my antennas and my audio receptors with one hand; another was resting softly against my stomach, with his large fingers curling over the end and settling on my side. Sideswipe had my lower half draped across his lap, and my right foot just touched a wall with how we were sitting. Sideswipes hands rested on my thighs, rubbing gentle and sweet circles along the seams of my dark flame covered armor and occasionally kneading at cables that would tense in random flexes. Both of their glacier blue eyes were gently settled on my face as we sat here, as we have been for the last several hours.

It was both a way to keep busy for them, and a way to stave off the boredom that threatened to consume us like ravenous flame. Also to remind them that I am 'theirs' and that they are 'mine'.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we were in the newly constructed brig.

As to why we're here and the boys are having issues? Well, it has something to do with Mirage. Something that has to do with him, and a little bit of an issue on personal space on his part. …

It all started with me simply sitting outside, kind of sort of brooding, but mostly having a conversation with the voice in my head. The voice doesn't talk if I'm with a bot or human, but it still brushes my conscious, reminding me that it's there, lurking, and licking greedy lips at the chance to lunge from the darkness and try to devour my mind.

The sand had been gently rolling in the wind, tickling at my feet and claws. I had been sitting in a curled up way, tucked like a big black stain against the rolling hill of golden sand.

"You know," the voice had crooned. "It will happen eventually, you can't escape it. And when you're mind belongs to me, the twins will leave you without a second thought."

"They wouldn't." I had argued quietly as I stared steadily at a chip in my paint on my knee. How I had gotten that chip, I couldn't remember. I don't really care, to be honest. I had been there talking to it for a while, about an hour by my count. It more or less, instead of talking, was just putting me down, and trying to tell me what would happen if I didn't do this, or that.

The voice was just about to retort, and then it suddenly slunk back into its dank, depressing whole in my mind. It angrily brushed against my mind, acting like a cactus to human hide in my head. I heard the twins approaching, and Sideswipe scooped me up and carted me off. They do that sometimes, if they want to be with me but not at that location.

"So," I asked casually as I made myself comfortable. Sideswipe shifted his arms accordingly, and then I reclined my head onto his shoulder, careful all the time not to scratch him with my horn like audio receptor. "Where we headed?"

"Rec room." Sunstreaker answered as he reached over and tweaked my toes affectionately.

So they had carted me off to the Rec room, and then plopped me on the couch to watch a movie on the giant flat screen. The movies themselves happened to be in another room, so Sunstreaker went to pick one out, claiming it was time to 'scare my plattings off'. Hard to do with movies, only a couple ever creeped me out, one being Star Wars because Java the Hut scared the shit out of me, and another being an old werewolf movie called Silver Bullet. Sideswipe had took it upon himself to go get us three energon from the kitchens, the 'good' stuff. So, pretty much a light high grade.

While they were gone for the couple minutes, I was left to relax on the couch, when that ass Mirage decided to come take a seat with me.

He plopped his bright red, he painted himself almost neon red, ass down next to me and slung an arm over my shoulders. "Hello beautiful seniorita." He chirped.

"Hello jackass." I responded. I reached up and grabbed his arm by the armor plattings and moved it off of me. "I suggest not doing that."

"Oh?"

"If it's in my space, i have the right to remove it by force." I stated. I had leaned away and drummed my hand tightly on my leg.

"We'll see about that." He had said. He leaned closer to me, and it gags me to say it now, he said in what I think was his lady catching tone, "So, chika, how about you and I take a drive to the cliffs tonight? Just you, me, and some wonderful high grade."

I had grunted uncomfortable and stood up to escape him. "Not interested." I shot him down. Never said I was nice about it. "I'm seeing someone already." I moved and paced to the center of the room.

Stupid ass followed me. "Ai, ai, ai, Sí, Sí. You're seeing those twins, sí?"

"Yes." I answered. "Now, I would appreciate it if you would just go and bother someone else."

He laid a hand on my shoulder and made me turn around. "I can be better then them, signora, if you just give me the chance."

I blanched. "No."

Sunstreaker had chosen that moment to step into the room. He had some movie I couldn't see in his hand, and his arms were crossed. He didn't look happy with Mirage. "She isn't interested."

"No, I'm not." I added. I had moved to go join Sunstreaker, when Mirage had snagged my arm and twirled me around.

He pinned me to his chassis, in what would have been a lover's hold. He grinned at me. "She'll be interested after a sample."

Guess what the bastard did? He kissed me. Like, full on lip lock. It sucked. Not that he was a bad kisser; just… it was wrong coming from him. Made my tanks churn, and the voice inside my head howl with words that I was being betrayed by the Autobots because he kissed me.

When he let me go, I slapped him and all three of us, Sideswipe had walked in during the kiss, went to go kick his ass. I didn't actually fight other then the slap, seeing as the twins didn't want me to get in trouble with them. Good lot that did. Of course, being able to go invisible, Mirage disappeared and we spent the day hunting him down. Needless to say we found him, and we pretty much curb stomped him all over. The sand dunes don't look the same now, thanks to his face prints and body prints.

In truth, we didn't get to beat him up for more then a couple minutes after we found him. Prowl happened to come out of the main hanger as I had stood by and watched Sunstreaker and Sideswipe fight Mirage. I think, Prowl thought they were sparring, until some potentially wounding blows were played but didn't land. Prowl then ended up comm. linking someone, and restrained me- Why me? I wasn't doing anything yet- which caught the twin's attention. They abandoned Mirage to growl at Prowl.

Sometimes, I had been told a while ago, that sometimes if a potential sparkmate or a sparkmate is in danger, the fighting protocols would act in defense of the sparkmate, whether or not it was in danger. Sometimes, even during friendly spars, the protocol would activate and send the mech or femme that has it into defense mode and make them attack allies.

Some bots have it, and some don't.

Apparently the twins have it, and it got us flown into the brig faster then you could say cheese. Well, not literally, but you get what I mean.

And that's how we got here.

I gave a low rumble and closed my eyes, leaning towards Sunstreaker's chassis. Right now I should have been out testing the MCR's, but Wheeljack found a couple more flaws a little bit before we got detained. That was two days ago. It was really boring sitting here for two days.

"Something bothering you babe?" Sunstreaker questioned.

"Nah." I answered. "Just tired." I shifted slightly. "You both make nice pillows." I mused.

Sideswipe gave a chuckle and patted my hip. "Princess, we're only pillows for you."

"Of course." I heard someone else say. I looked up, and lo and behold, there was Wheeljack in all his dirty white glory standing behind the yellow glow of the brig bars! "I'm here to steal you away for a bit. I got the Mini Compulsion Rockets done, and there is no glitches what so ever."

"Does that mean I'm out of the brig?" I asked. I was allowed up, and I pulled the twins with me.

"Nope." Wheeljack chirped. "After they're installed, you get to come back here for the remaining three more days." Gah, three days left.

I sighed and looked at the twins who were standing with me, looking like big red and yellow body guards. Sideswipe sighed and moved, scratching at the back of his helm. "Go for it, we'll have something to talk to you about when you get back." He reached forward and ran a gentle hand over and down my arm. "If you see Mirage, kick him for us." He teased slightly.

Sunstreaker mimicked his brothers' motion, and nodded. "And kick the fragger good, get him with your claws." I nodded and walked to the edge of the cell. Wheeljack pressed a button and the bars opened up, and I slipped out. Wheeljack, seemingly careful not to anger the twins, lead me out by my elbow.

When we reached his lab, I laid myself out on the table and splayed my wings proudly. "So," I quipped. A dark thought was shoved into my mind, making me swallow my energon again. "What did you have to fix?" I asked.

"I made them faster, more inclined to pick up a bot my weight and a little higher. It goes fast, fast enough to catch a seeker, but slow enough to keep yourself safe from shots with maneuverability." Wheeljack went on to ramble off in a couple hundred different scientific facts. "-And you'll just have to deal with testing them when you get out of the brig."

I ignored him for the most part after that, letting him chatter aimlessly as he set up the MCR's. Wheeljack took his time making sure everything was set up, so that no complications would happen. He had to connect the whole thing to my nervous system from the main structure, and had a couple ties that ran deeper then that, to keep my wings and me attached in the high-speed winds. He also had to activate the manual thrusters, and the such.

It went fairly fast, and then I was sitting up with a new black and white flame covered set of flying rockets. I rotated them, checked suspension, bearings, balance, and the other usual things. I found them in a balance of normal.

Things were silent as I was guided back to the brig, where upon I was scooped up and purred at by the twins.

(_**AN: kind of rushed for this chapter, so I can't really be bothered to write out a bunch of meaningless prattle at the moment. Next chapter should be better~**_)

Sometime later, while we were all alone again and back in the same position, only in Reverse for the twins, I was asked bluntly by Sideswipe, "Do you remember when we told you that our sparks chose our mate?"

"Yeah." I answered.

Sunstreaker answered. "Well, our spark chose you." He said bluntly. "Will you be out sparkmate?"

I was almost speechless. I nodded slowly. "Of course, but I think we should wait until I've finished growing." I stated.

Sideswipe leaned down and pressed a kiss to one sensitive antenna. ""Of course, love, anything."


	53. Free Falling Flight

(_**Updates aren't coming as fast as I like :/ but what can I do? School is a pain, and then leaves me tired like no other… weekends I cant write because my mom is always peeking over my shoulder, making me uncomfortable, and my grandpa is always coming over and telling me to open up his checking account even when we both know there will be no difference.**_

_**Family makes writing hard. Life doesn't help ether.**_

_**I know this is short, but I'm building up for the big event~ as to what that big event is, I'll leave that to ya'lls imagination, but if you can guess it, I'll give ya a shout out~**_

_**And those of you who already know for various reasons don't get counted, lol, otherwise that wouldn't be fair.**_

_**Read, Review, Fave, alert, and even read again! Till the next AN, your dearest authoress bids farewell to my beloved readers even if most of you skip the AN anyways~**_)

Three days. Three long, boring, mind numbing, mental torture days. Prowl, being the ass fuck he is, decided to separate us into three cells. In the whole brig, I had found out that there were exactly twenty-three cells total. I was put in the fourteenth. Alone. From there, the voice of my mother has been eating away at my mind, through blockades that I would put up, and generally making my stay a living hell. I didn't sleep, because the images would fuck with my mind, and it would numb my mind with my responses. I didn't lose my energon, oh no, but I began to feel… _excited_ at the images the Mom-voice would send. I could feel- _feel_- the energon pounding through my lines when I would see the images; see their violence and horrible pain. It felt good, but to terribly wrong at the same time. It made the missing bonds all the more apparent; the gaping blackness encroaching on my mind, taking it tiny, microscopic bit by bit.

I'm beginning to feel the first bits of insanity, I think. I realized this when I was sitting curled in the corner, thinking about how I could dismember Prowl for taking me from my twins. My twins… I like the sound of that.

But now I was free; outside in the sunlight, feeling it dance over my armor, warming it considerably to the dark cold of the brig. The voice was hidden away, banished for the moment by the presence of the entire Autobot Armada and our army of human Nest Soldiers. My spark, at the moment, was flying high and feeling free, lighter then it's been in days without the crushing feeling of my own personal mind demon plaguing me. I arched my spine and heated up my thrusters, letting my door wings do a little happy dance. My antenna's waved around with my mood.

I got a light tap on the helm with a tool by Wheeljack. "Hey, if you move around then I cant see if you knocked anything loose during your stay at the brig." I gave an involuntary shudder at the mention of the brig. "Don't like it much do you?"

"Not particularly." I answered. Wheeljack gave a happy grunt and I felt something being tightened. It kind of tickled to be honest, and the feeling sent my antenna bouncing and waving like little metal worms on speed.

When all was tightened and stuff, Wheeljack turned me around and pressed a small cube of strange green glowing energon in my hands. "Here. The Mini Compulsion Rockets might burn more fuel, so this will help lower the intake needed." He nodded to me. "Go ahead, drink up!" he chirped.

I glanced warily at it, my antenna twitching curiously. I sighed, and took a drink. It shouldn't have tasted bad, green usually doesn't mean bad in a fuel way. I was wrong. Oh so wrong. It tasted like I had just went and pulled a cow, munching on grass and shit. I swallowed the small thing in one gulp, and then handed it back to Wheeljack with a grimace. "That tasted like I went and licked a Decepticon. How much of that shit do I have to drink?"

"Not a whole lot." He answered. "Probably about ten more doses and you'll be fully adjusted. It both will help lower your energon intake, but reduce waste and improve the efficiency at which you will be able to work." Wheeljack motioned to the others, who were all loitering about and chatting while waiting for me to take off, with one brightly glowing head fin. "They'll take it too when I work out the unstable bits of it."

Wait… unstable? I shot him a dirty look. "If I explode, I'm coming back to haunt you."

"You wont, you wont." Wheeljack waved off. "Go visit your boys real fast, I'll get everyone out of the way, okay?"

"Gotcha." I nodded. I withdrew myself from his grip, and then we parted, and I walked to the twins. They were farther to my right, talking with Optimus and Elita, who was holding Leo. I kept my focus off of Leo and his parents, keeping my optics located on my to be spark mates. When I slipped up behind them, I stretched up and threw my arms around their necks. "Hiya boys." I greeted. I moved my gaze to Optimus. "Hello Prime."

He nodded at me, a look of saddened love in his optics. "Hello my daughter." I held back a wince. The way he said it… it just tugged at my spark strings.

I felt the twin's arms wind around my waist. Sideswipe was the first to greet me, with a gentle kiss to the side of my audio receptor. "Hello, princess."

"Good to see you, babe." Sunstreaker said. He leaned a bit further down and pressed a kiss to my antenna, which in return pretty much melted into a mass of wiggling metal wormy sensation.

Optimus's optics had tightened unhappily at our open display of affection, and he shifted slightly. I turned my attention away from him for the time being.

"You ready to see me fly?" I grinned.

They nodded. "And we'll catch you if you crash."

"Good," I chirped. "It would be a shame if you had to repaint me." I said in a slightly teasing tone. They gave me a happy nudge, and let me know that they knew I was joking.

"Nightstrider?" I heard Wheeljack call. "Ratchet wants a word with you."

I inclined my head back to peak at said mech. He was on the other side of the crowd, staring at me with his arms crossed and was tapping a foot. I wonder what crawled up his ass. I looked back at the guys. "I'll talk to you later then, when we're back at our room."

They both turned and pressed a kiss to the sides of my helm simultaneously. "We'll look forward to it."

I then marched myself over to Ratchet, letting a wide half grin invade my face. When I was in front of him, I chirped. "What's up Doc'?"

Ratchet took a moment to study me, and then he leaned forward, way into my personal space, and squinted at me. "Is there something you wish to tell me?" He said it like he was ether suspicious of something, or knew something that he shouldn't.

I blinked at him, suddenly getting a feeling that I'd heard that before, and I had. Dumbledore from Harry Potter asked Harry that exact same question. Weird. "Um, no, not really." Its not like I can just pop out there and say, "Yeah Ratchet, I'm losing my mind because of some voice that sounds like my mothers, but other then that, yeah, I'm peachy!" Yeah, no one would buy that.

"Alright." He sighed. "Then can you explain the video feed I got from Prowl of you seemingly talking to yourself for hours on end?"

I waved it off as nonchalantly as I could. "You would talk to yourself too if you were stuck by yourself for two days, and no way to talk to anyone but yourself." I lied.

He studied me for a moment, as if to see if I'd let anything else slip for his raking optics to spy. I don't know if Ratchet saw anything or not. After that moment, he sighed and nodded. "I suppose I would if I were alone." He gave my arm a friendly pat. "I want to see you in a week, for a checkup. For now, go have fun."

"Don't need to tell me twice!" I chirped.

…

It took about fifteen minutes total to get everyone far enough away that my blasters wouldn't hit anyone. When that was done, I stood in the center of the large parking lot that had been cleared for me; all the tanks and planes were tucked away on the other side of the base. Wheeljack stood about sixty feet away from me, giving me a thumbs up signal. That was the 'Go' bell for me to start up my thrusters, seeing as they had already been warmed up during the previous fifteen or so minutes.

I exhaled gently, letting my body start up the thruster's one piece by one piece. I felt the hum of them through my sensitive door wings as they heated further and began to glow. I steadied myself and then crouched low, the cables in my legs bunching and my armor moving to accommodate my position. Giving my ass a little shake like a pouncing cat, I then sprang upwards, throwing the switch fully on in my wings. For a second, they didn't do anything as I started to descend, and then they lit up like a firework, and letting off a roaring scream of blaze they jerked me skywards.

For the record, the initial take off hurts, but the feeling of flying is fantastic! I know I said previously I dislike planes and flying with a passion, I also said that it depends on if it's me flying or someone else. With me flying, I find it fantastic. Driving and jumping dunes though, still appeals more to me. However, I could steadily feel my energy dropping quickly. Wheeljack was right, they do draw a lot of energy from the body, especially when you boost yourself faster from the ground.

I angled my right wing, and it sent me into a spiral, which I used to my advantage to flip me around to I could fly over the crowd of people and bots. I dipped, and I dived, spiraling high above them, even if it was a short time. I felt free, like a bird from its cage. But in the midst, I could feel the voice and darkness laughing at me, and pressing to me, trying to get at what joy I was experiencing to try and corrupt it.

I blocked it to the best I could, the voice whispering at me to let it in, to share the joy.

I let myself free fall, dive-bombing the humans and bots almost, before I had to pull up. It was hella fun, and scary too.

When I brought myself down to land in the same spot as I had taken off, I felt exhilaration at the gravity pulling at me when I lowered the blast of the rockets, slowly lowering myself to the ground. I could hear cheers and whistles from the humans, and I think a couple bots, but I'm not sure. I could also feel the pull that they had taken on my already low tanks, seeing as if you remember; I haven't been taking in as much energon because I usually end up losing it in the showers.

When my feet touched the ground, and my thrusters died down completely, my legs shook for a second before they gave with a clank. I hit the ground on my hands and knees, giving a couple jittery movements in my wings. I heard panicked feet not a moment later, as the twins, quite literally, almost bowled Ratchet over to get to me. I felt their arms slip under mine and lift mine over their shoulders, where on they lifted me so I was hanging almost limply between the two of them.

They chattered at me, asking what was wrong, and all that shit.

"That… Was… Awesome!" I exclaimed loudly.

Ratchet gave a grumpy noise and checked me over from where I hung. "Your fine kiddo, you need some energon and some rest." He announced for all of us to hear. "Good job kid, you do your rockets proud. Just don't over do it."

"Aye Aye, Captain!" I said cheekily. I felt a couple pinches in my hand wires and gave the twins dirty looks. "Ouch?" I said.

"You worried us."

"We thought something was wrong, babe, don't do it again."

"Gotcha." I grinned.

"Oh," the voice crooned. "They'll do more then worry, especially when we turn around and shove our claws through their spark chambers. Oh, how delicious their screams of anguish and betrayal will sound."


	54. Into The Depths Of Insanity

(_**Hello, and welcome to Chapter Fifty-Four of GIBTH! So much has happened along our journey so far, and so much more will happen too! Or at least it should, lol, assuming that I don't reach the end of the story.**_

_**I want to make a shout out to my brain twin, you'll know who you are but for others that'd be Zayren Heart, and to Craftyjoe! **_

_**Zayren, I hope everything goes well for you when we aren't messaging one another, and that your inspiration for LID doesn't die!**_

_**Craftyjoe, you were close in your assumption. That is a big event that is in the future, but alas, no cigar for you {smoking is bad, don't do it~}. As I'm a sucker for slightly happy endings, there will be a way to- oops, can't let the spoiler go XD. There's one big event that will be happening in the next chapter of GIBTH and one that no one will have thought to happen!**_

_**Reread, Review, Favorite, Alert it, even flame me! I love to hear from you all!**_

_**Ps, the reason this is actually fairly longer then I actually planned is because I'm sick and am home from school for the day so I needed something to do.**_)

Roughly a week from my first flight, I've found myself sitting in the med bay waiting for Ratchet to come back with the tools he's going to use. I don't know what it is, but only that it's something he's going to use to hack into my processor to see what's been in my mind since the bond broke. Yeah, I broke down and told him that I was hearing things. I even told him what it made me see. He wants to see for himself, but he said that essentially I would end up reliving it as well. For this, he was also bringing Ironhide, to keep me pinned to where ever he has me while he does the brain-scanning thing. Ratchet says that having my Twins in here would create problems, because it was most likely that with my memories flowing in front of me, that I'll end up violent, or something of the sort.

Over the week, I've been stuffed full of that nasty green energon. Wheeljack says that I've had my last dose, counting up at fifteen instead of ten, and that my body is ready for me to be able to do extensive flying. I, of course, haven't actually flew for longer then thirty minutes because I have such a short space to fly seeing as the island is my limit, so I cant even to wave flying. It sucks, royally, but I can understand why. I could crash, and the salt water would irritate my circuits then I'd be left grumpy for a long while.

Jolt was here too; the skittish mech was tinkering with something the looked suspiciously like giant handcuffs in a corner of the med bay, for the most part ignoring me. What he was doing with giant handcuffs I will probably never know. I don't want to know. The quiet ones are always the surreptitious kinky ones. Why am I pondering this now?

There was several thundering steps as the door to the med bay slid open with a whir, letting the view of Ratchet wheeling some huge ass machine in followed shortly by a grumpy looking Ironhide. Ratchet gave me a nod, which I waved to the both of them, and then wheeled the hulking great behemoth beast of a machine into a separate room. My spark sunk almost at the most painful looking spike like thing at the end of a cable that jutted from one of the many panels.

Ironhide took it upon himself to snag my elbow and pull me off the table and after Ratchet. "Come on youngling." He said. "We got to take a peek at what's fragging up your mind." I grimaced at him. "Now youngling, it can't possibly be that bad now can it?"

"You have no idea…" I muttered enigmatically.

"Yes, Ironhide, you have no idea what I plan to do with you…" The voice hissed.

"Shut the fuck up, you useless piece of Decepticon shit." I thought back to it, trying to get it to see what I was saying without actually saying it.

I allowed Ironhide to take me into the back, though I gave a disgruntled noise when he swung me up onto the large table like I was a sparkling again. He must have seen the dirty look I gave him, because he gave a half growling chuckle.

"You're always going to be a sparkling to me." Ironhide gave me a pat on the helm and then reached under the table to get some things. "If you remember, I was the who's palm you released your first waste. If you also remember, my hand rusted from you too." Oh god, he had to bring that up… I was like, not even four foot tall! How was I supposed to know how I was supposed to get rid of excess energon wastes?

My hand met my face as I sighed at him. "Are you ever going to let that go?"

"Not as long as I am online, youngling."

I heard a rattling noise, like a shackle of some sort, and then Ironhide pulled out four large chains with cuffs on both ends. I arched an eyebrow plate at him and inquired, "Is that really necessary?"

"Yes." Ratchet answered. I heard the humming of the machine as I saw it light up on various panels and a white beam shoot out at one of the blank walls and create a movie screen. "Both for our safety, and your own. Ironhide is here to keep you from injuring yourself from where the cuffs will be connected."

As if on cue, two tight, heavy, black metal cuffs clamped around my ankles and then the opposite end clamped to something under the table. I held out my hands for the others to be put on, and Ironhide, rather gently for the usually tough and ruthless mech, clamped them onto my arms, just about at the middle of my forearm.

"Jeeze, what's this stuff used for, Decepticons?" I asked to myself.

"Yes." Ratchet answered heavily. "This once pure medical tool is now mainly used for torture and stealing secrets, by both factions." Pulling on the cable, Ratchet brought it up and near me; I could see the metal spike glistening in the low lighting. "Now this wont hurt, but I need to insert this into your cranial unit, in direct shot to your processor."

As Ratchet moved to do so, I said contemptuously, "The images in my head are bad, Ratchet, so please don't hate me for them. I can't control what it does."

"Speaking of which, we'll hear Audio for these things so we'll get the chance to hear what you hear when the voice talks." Ratchet informed us. "You said the voice you hear is your biological femme creator, correct?" I nodded. "I see…"

There was a click, and then I felt something invading my head. Something other then the Voice. I jerked involuntarily, trying to get away from it, but the chains prevented me from doing this. I looked to the white screen, now tinted a dark color that in the center showed the white screen itself as it was on my mind. My optics moved to Ratchet, as he loved back to the machine, his hands deftly pressing buttons with a familiar experience that made me wonder how many Decepticons this had been used on.

"Too many to count." Ironhide grunted. I cast him a slant eyed glance. "We can see what your thinking, brat." I pictured him as a target in the range, with a big red bulls-eye painted on his ass. He cuffed me over the head, careful not to dislodge the spike. "Watch it brat, or I'll use _you_ as target practice for my cannons."

"Hush now." Ratchet barked. "We're going to start now. Ironhide, ready yourself please."

Ironhide reached across me and snagged the chain on my arm, pulling it further up the table, which was reclined up so I was lounging in a hospital bed type thing. It gave me a clear view of his chassis.

"Kill him. Kill him for touching you, wronging you." The voice hissed in my head. I heard it out loud too, the voice of my Mother when she was angry. It made Ironhide freeze and look to the screen, giving me a view of his throat cables. "It's so easy, love, just reach up and drive those sharp talons of yours into his chassis." It gave an excited sound, and a happy cooing mewl. "See, see? like this, drive them right up. Quick and almost painless." It popped a moving image of me breaking the chain and driving my hand up through Ironhides chassis as he gave me a betrayed look.

I shuddered. "Crawl back into your hole and die, damn it, I'm busy!" I barked out loud at it.

It gave me a scolding _tsk_. "Now, don't tell your mother to die, I already died once."

I cast Ratchet a glance as Ironhide finished securing me. "Do it now, please, it'll shut her up I think."

"Alright." He pressed some buttons, and then typed in a couple codes. I could feel something extending out and then pressing a bit further into my processor.

Not too much later I ended up jerking sharply like some sort of exorcist try out. My processor flashed back to the very beginning of my insanity, the pain and the feelings resurfacing and tearing savagely at my mind and spark again. It hurt, oh god it hurt.

_"You are nothing without them! Weak! Pathetic!"_

The conversations began to play as they crossed my mind from beginning to end, including images I received.

_"Hurt them, harm them, and make them pay!"_

_Images flood my mind, views of my human family dead, with me ripping them apart piece by piece, occasionally flinging them into the air, juggling them, and then shoving a claw up and out their mouths. The twins, impaled on a couple spikes with me literally eating their sparks out, one bite at a time as they slowly watch and die, their sweet screeches of anguish sung such a saccharine lullaby to my ears._

_My father chained to a ceiling, as I slowly pull off his limbs and shred them with my claws. I saw myself reaching up and planting a daughterly kiss on his cheek, and hugging him around the neck, only to suddenly find myself wrenching his head from his shoulders and chucking it away only to dig around inside his body to crush his spark._

_Little Leo, sitting in my arms giggling and happy, with me smiling and happy, in a pile of dead carnage. Then my face would darken into a twisted smile, and I watched the image as I leaned down and bit his head off with my teeth._

My vocal processor let out the most audio receptor splitting shriek as pain pierced my spark. I want to deny it, to say I never witnessed anything so gruesome. No. No. I don't want it. No! Stop! Please stop! I don't want to watch any more!

"Stop Ratchet!" I called loudly.

_"Oh honey, we know it hurts," My mothers voice crooned softly. It was that tone, though it had a hidden insanity that just brushed the surface, that I remembered so well from my mother. "But it will all go away, if you only-"_

_"But they're not your family, now are they?"_

"_I can't go and do that, leaving you all alone. Oh wait, I can. Your already alone."_

That phrase hurt, it hurt even more now that I've been hinted too that Optimus still sees me as his daughter. I let out a pathetic mewl, my optics closing shut. Ironhide ran a hand over the front of my faceplates, shushing me like he had done once after I had first managed to hurt myself as a sparkling. Optimus had been out on a small visit to the government, and though it escapes my mind at the moment as to how I hurt myself, Ironhide had been there shushing me even though I hadn't been crying.

I heard a slight ruckus outside the room. I could hear the twins in there suddenly, demanding to know why I was screaming on an innocent visit. Ironhide left me briefly. I could hear him yelling at the twins. My twins.

"Your not supposed to be here!"

"Our chosen sounds like she's being tortured! We could hear Nightstrider's screeches from across the base!" I heard Sunstreaker shout at I'm guessing Ironhide.

I convulsed slightly and let out a howl seeing as the words and images were still playing through my mind. My claws slid out and left gouges in the metal, wherever I could reach there was a long furrow of curled metal and shards.

"Now where the frag is she!" Sideswipe roared. I heard a solid thump on one of the walls, and then a snarl. "She's back there!"

There was a loud war cry and then it fell silent. I heard Ironhide trooping back in a couple moments later. "They're out of it for now. Locked in one of your closets, Ratch." He neared me again and pressed a calming hand to my forehead. "Easy now, we don't want you breaking the berth."

"Frag you!" I snarled. The images started up again.

The image that had made me first lose the energon in my tanks popped up, and I did the robot version of a dry heave.

_Optimus feeding Leo, in the same way he had fed me, not so long ago._

_"It would be so easy." She whispered in the back of my mind. "They wouldn't know until it would be too late, to late to do anything." She purred. "Just walk up, all normal like. Then strike."_

_"So peaceful. Lets fuck it up, shall we?"_

_It chuckled in a way that sent my mothers voice singing painfully through my processor. "Of course, love, of course. Take your peace for now. But I'll be back later."_

For one of the few times I've done it, I felt energon tears roll down my face, and I set myself to thrashing. I arched up, screeching as I went for Ratchet to stop. My claws lashed out blindly, and I felt them getting restrained, but not before I felt them scratch through a layer of paint and a couple small layers of metal.

"Stop… please, stop…" I choked. Then I snarled. "Fucking stop!"

"I cant do that, you know this." I barely heard him as I let out another demon scream. It echoed, hurting my audios among other things.

Things flashed, images, voices, words, and conversations. Everything. Every single thing since the birth of Leo played through my mind. The voice of my mother rang loudly, though. Un-ignorable.

_"You know," the voice had crooned. "It will happen eventually, you can't escape it. And when you're mind belongs to me, the twins will leave you without a second thought."_

_"They wouldn't." I had argued quietly_

_Alone. From there, the voice of my mother has been eating away at my mind, through blockades that I would put up, and generally making my stay a living hell. I didn't sleep, because the images would fuck with my mind, and it would numb my mind with my responses. I didn't lose my energon, oh no, but I began to feel… excited at the images the Mom-voice would send. I could feel- feel- the energon pounding through my lines when I would see the images; see their violence and horrible pain. It felt good, but to terribly wrong at the same time. It made the missing bonds all the more apparent; the gaping blackness encroaching on my mind, taking it tiny, microscopic bit by bit._

_I'm beginning to feel the first bits of insanity, I think. I realized this when I was sitting curled in the corner, thinking about how I could dismember Prowl for taking me from my twins. My twins… I like the sound of that._

_"Oh," the voice crooned. "They'll do more then worry, especially when we turn around and shove our claws through their spark chambers. Oh, how delicious their screams of anguish and betrayal will sound."_

I banged back with a scream, the harsh sound hurting my audios even worse as my voice modulator gave a protesting whine to being used so much. I felt the images come to a stop, and then I felt the bindings on my limbs lightening as they loosened slightly, but still tight enough to keep me down. The probe left my head, and my mind felt less constricted and invaded.

The black bleakness of the missing bonds has shot over my mind, encroaching it in its ravenous hunger for my sanity. I could feel feelings that weren't mine shoving themselves to the forefront of my processor. Whispers of empty promises filled my mind, their words tumbling into an endless mass of words, slurs, and bashing things.

Make them stop. Make them stop…

Anger. I felt anger. Why didn't they stop? I'm not a Decepticon prisoner; I didn't deserve to have that torment flutter through my mind again. I didn't. No. No. No.

"No, you didn't deserve that, did you?" I heard the voice sympathize. I knew I shouldn't have let it into my mind like I am, but… when you go through that kind of experience, its hard to put up walls again. "Show them. Show them what they made you feel. It's only fair, love, to receive what you give, don't you think?" Yes. No. I don't know.

I opened my optics and lunged forward with a snarl. "Let me go!" I roared.

Ratchet suddenly filled my vision, his large yellow hands coming around to hold my head so I met his gaze. "Nightstrider, are you still there?"

"Yes!" I snapped. I tried to pull my head from his hands. "Let me go! Now!" I snarled.

Ratchet calmly stared into my optics, which I narrowed into a glare at him. "Ironhide, she's going. Fast. We shouldn't have done this to her. I didn't think it would screw up her mind so much."

"You did this to me!" The dark promising screech in my words angered me. I shouldn't say this. No. No. No. "I'll tear you to pieces!"

Ironhide left, I saw this as Ratchet let my head go. I thrashed, screeched, and hollered things that would have churned my tanks. Empty promises though. I don't think I'll do them. I don't know. Maybe.

I arched up again with a scream and bashed myself downward, tugging angrily at the bindings that held me down, trying to distract myself away from the pain starting in my spark and processor.

"That's it," the voice cooed. "Give into your rage, your hate. Let them fuel you; consume you. Let them set me free."

"No!" I howled.

Ironhide came back in with Sideswipe and Sunstreaker firmly in his grasp. "This is what you weren't supposed to see." Ironhide stated. The boys jerked forward towards me, but Ironhide held fast. "Don't let her go. She's not stable anymore."

"No!" The boys were quick; they turned simultaneously and shoved away from Ironhide. They neared me, shoving Ratchet out of the way, and then came to me, one on each side.

"Now is your chance! End them before they leave you!" Mothers voice cheered.

"No." I choked. "I wont harm my twins."

They pressed closer to me, pinning me to the bed. "Ours." They claimed.

"Mine." I answered back.

"Good."

The unhooked me from the chains, and then pinned my still violent body to them. "You want to harm us?" Sunstreaker asked.

My anger faded a fair amount with my- mine all mine- twins affectionately nuzzled me. "No." I choked on a growl. I felt the energon tears start again. "Never, I don't want to hurt anyone. No." I let out a fritzing sob. "They wouldn't stop, Sunny. Sides. They wouldn't let me go. It hurts. It hurts so bad." They pulled me up into their laps and rocked me, side to side, as I let their presence try and calm me. The voice began the most volatile shrieking I'd heard from it yet.

"We'll do it after you've had your moment together." Ratchet said. He sounded monotoned, like he was dreading doing what he was talking about.

"Yes." I agreed, feeling a sense of satisfaction when the voice howled death threats and shoved against my consciousness. I focused on the twins, feeling them holding me, touching me. Soothing me.

"No." Sideswipe argued. "We wont loose our intended when we've waited so long to find you."

"Your ours to keep, babe, we aren't letting you go."

"You don't have a choice in tha matter." Ironhide said gruffly.

It was silent for a while, what could have felt like eternity when it was probably ten or fifteen minutes or so.

Then the entire base shook with an explosion and a siren started wailing.

"Looks like it's going to have to wait." Ratchet monotoned. "That's the Decepticon alarm. We're being attacked."


	55. Grimoire of Goodbyes

(_**OMG 55 CHAPTERS OF GRAB IT BY THE HORNS!**_

_**Wow, I have a lot of reviews, and I love every one of them. Every single one of them. It humbles me in ways you cannot imagine. Never did I think that I'd get more then maybe ten or so reviews. Truly more then I ever expected.**_

_**In turn for your loyal reviews, I hope I please you with this chapter, each and every difficult word I have slaved over. Enjoy this wonderful chapter, and I hope it doesn't break any sparks.**_

_**I'm sorry if my fight scenes are shitty, but I've never been good at fight scenes. Writing them is so much harder then acting them, lol.**_

_**Special shout out to EVERYONE! I love you all dearly, you all make my day. If I feel like crap, I go and read the reviews and then I'm all smiles.**_

_**I apologize if how the chapter is written has confused you. Just remember, the insane don't have completely coherent thoughts. **_)

I stood outside in the line of Autobots and human NEST members. At my right was Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, followed by Bumblebee who was visiting for some energon refills, Prowl, Jazz and then at the end was Jolt, to my left stood my father- no, no, Optimus-, stood Optimus. Ironhide, Ratchet, Chromia, Arcee, Skids and Mudflap, Mirage, and then Wheeljack stood in that order after him. Elita-1 and her spawn were in a safe hanger, one that's been Optimus tested, as in he hopped like a fucking jack-a-lope on speed all over it.

My optics are trained on the sky, searching the cloudy but still blue enough clouds for any signs of our enemies. It had been a seeker warning shot that set off the alarms, purposefully harmless, but still devastating to our meeting hanger. It now has a new skylight. I can't really complain, it makes the place much nicer looking with a little natural lighting in it. Much more… welcoming.

Currently the voice in my head is cheering and screeching her joys for only me to hear about the chance to cause some carnage. She doesn't care if its Autobot or Decepticon, so long as there is death, destruction, and total chaos, she is happy and not filling my head with things. There is the occasional quip of what she would be doing to the bots on ether side of me right now, but other then that, nothing too relevant to my companions.

A nudge on my left arm breaks my concentration. I move my optics and swivel my head up and to the left to look at Optimus. He gives me a long look and then sighs, taking my hand in his and giving it a comforting squeeze before letting go again. "Are you alright?" He asked me. Optimus gave me a tight look. "We heard you in the med bay."

"Yes, he heard you and didn't come for you." Mother abruptly hissed to me. "He left you to be tormented by that medic, even when he heard your screams."

"No, Prime." I said tightly as I raised a hand to rub my helm gently. "I'm not okay. And I wont be; for a long, long time. If ever." Lowering my hand, I felt it gently brushed by Sideswipe. I brushed back, letting him know I knew he was there for me. "But what business is it of yours, Prime?"

Optimus's faceplates stretched into a large frown. "In a family, the well-being of the children is always on the parents mind. You're still my daughter, no matter how much you deny it."

"If you are his daughter, he shouldn't have left you there. Just stood by, where ever he was, while you were screaming." The voice added. Then it cooed. "If I were him, I would have been there, killing those who caused you pain, my love."

I narrowed my optics at him. To some extent the voice was right… as hard as it was to admit that, the damn-fucking thing was right. "Well-being?" I said shortly. "If you call letting the medic fuck with your daughters mind more then it already is, as something for my well-being, then I don't want anything to do with your fucked up family." I snapped quietly.

Optimus recoiled slightly. I didn't flinch. It felt… nice to speak my mind. It felt nice. I like it. No. I'm not supposed to like it. Aw fuck. "I know you don't. But family is always family, no matter what anyone says or does. Always equal." He sighed and glanced skyward. I stared at him hard, hoping with all my being he would feel it. "I should have come. I know I should have. I just didn't know what I could have done to help."

"You could have stopped him." I jeered. "You let him use a machine meant for Decepticon torture and mind searches on me! No good father allows that to happen to _any_ of his children!" I jerked my gaze away with a growl.

"Yes, my child of misery, tap into the anger. He left you. He didn't come save you. He's like your _human_ father, abandoning you." The mom/voice crooned. "He loves his little spawn over you. You've been with Optimus longer, fought for him, with him. The sparkling is useless. If you get rid of it, then Optimus will have no choice but to love his only living child."

"I know." He murmured. "I could have done things differently, and I would if I could. But I cant."

I looked away, up at the sky, with an angry rumble. Sideswipe took my hand and drew gentle circles on the back, trying to calm me and pacify my building rage. It didn't help. Not at all. It was nice, yeah, sweet too, but all it did was bottle the rage up in a cage until it swells out of it. If the growing darkness in my spark were any indication, then it wouldn't be long.

There was a loud thundering noise from the ocean, as if it were a stampede of several thousand head of cattle. I stiffened, and scanned the sky, seeing dark shapes, not a whole lot so roughly five, darting about in the clouds. I growled and warmed my thrusters, heating them so I could turn them on full blast with the flick of an internal switch. Then I folded them back under my door wings, in case someone took a cheap shot at one and it blew up.

Wheeljack suddenly moved and pulled me back. "Hold still, I made this for you some time back, I just forgot to add it to you."

Wheeljack installed a mask and visor to my face. The visor was a darkly tinted indigo that slid from the top of my helm in a way like the Original Jazz had, if I remember right. I think. I dunno. I had a mask that covered my mouth and nose, leaving about a three and a half inch space between the visor and the mask. The mask itself slid from somewhere in my cheek plates, and was a dark gray, very simple but sturdy in design. Neither restricted movements, sight, speech, or anything like that.

"It should keep you safer, with less chance of a facial injury." Wheeljack claimed. He gave me a pat on the shoulder armor, to which I nodded my halfhearted thanks, and then we both stepped back into line.

With a great big belch from the sea it seemed, an army of Decepticon drones came charging up and over the hills of sand. They varied in size, some standing tall like Optimus, or small and almost human sized. They were armed mainly with melee weapons, but a couple had what looked to be photon cannons or something like that. There were many, many, many times how many Autobots and humans we had here. More then a hundred. Definitely.

"Ready yourselves." Came the baritone command from Prime.

I rocked on my heels, my shoulder cannons sliding out and locking onto a couple smaller drones. My toe claws scoured scratches in the seemingly soft concrete, and my hands flexed excitedly in anticipation of fighting. I heard the others shifting stances as well.

"Roll out!"

We charged. The seekers who had been flying around above us abruptly dropped from the sky into our view and began shooting at us. Their aim was shitty, and none of us were hit. The Autobots as one let out one long war cry, but we were almost drowned out by the Decepticons marching. We met in a flurry of fighting.

I launched myself forward with a half crazed roar, my body slamming into a Decepticon roughly Ironhides size. My claws curled into the seams of his, he had a mech-like frame, and I pulled my self up towards his helm.

The Decepticon swung his beefy fists at me, managing to clock me a good one in the gut. He pulled at my armor, and I fired off my blasters, which took out a large spot of his vomit green shoulder armor. He shrieked unholy things at me in gibberish, and it made me wonder just what the fuck he was saying to me.

"Hurt him. Harm him. He hit you. That's sentence for death." Mother cooed. Mother… Mother is happy. "Yes, my love, mother is very happy. You don't want to make me sad do you?" No. Yes. I don't know…

I sunk my claws deep in his stomach armor and forced myself to stand upright. My weight tore down his reinforced abdomen, exposing his entrails to be torn by my claws, and my toes stopped me at his hip joints. My hands came up for a quick kill, gripping his helm in my hands. The Decepticon tried to bite me, his metal lips just nibbling at my thick double layer armor; his hands gripped my hips and tried to wrench me away. His hands fell away at the same time his head did, my hands dripping from the energon that spilled from his helm. His body hit the ground with a thump, and then I was off of him and onto the next. And the next. And the next after that.

I stepped on the smaller ones, taking delight at how their human sized bodies crunched loudly under my weight, and how their energon tickled my claws and sensitive wiring like an old lover. I took damage as well. The armor in the right cavity of my shoulder was caved in, still acting as armor but grating uncomfortably against my protoform armor. There are various burn marks across my frame, tainting the multi colored flame decal that covered my armor. Dings and dents covered everything accept my head. So far my count of deaths to the cons was high. I can't recall… how many drones I've killed.

I managed to ground a seeker while I was at it though, before he threw me across the lot.

Mother practically purred in my head, sending me insane waves of pleasure at the carnage and death I was dealing out. "You see that one there, love? Hit him in the side, between the swell of his chassis and his hips. You'll like the result, I promise."

I launched off the body I just finished and then sent out a roundhouse kick to the softer area of the mech in front of me, a tall brute, probably just the same size as Optimus. My legs, having been worked out a shit load so I could do stuff easier with my claws, easily let me twirl and collide with the mech. The softer area, which Mother had pointed out, easily caved with my kick. In fact, my leg went right through him, like a butcher knife through bread. He fell in half, screaming like a femme until his optics offlined, and then hit the ground with a thump.

"Wonderful. Now, jump from his chassis, there is a large enemy for you to take down on the other side of this crowd." Mother instructed.

I leapt upon his chassis, and launched myself up and through the air. I sailed over enemies, firing my blasters at a couple of them just for good measure, and then I looked to where I was aiming. I was sailing straight for Optimus. He caught the sight of me and widened his optics as he grappled with an enemy. I caught sight of one coming up behind him.

I gave a rage filled howl as I cut my jump short by shoving myself off of a standing mech's shoulder, using the momentum to propel myself over Optimus's head and to collide with the mech behind him. I roared in his face as I knocked him down to the ground, my legs coming up to pin his arms down, my claws sinking into the delicate wiring and circuitry beneath the hard armor. My hands quickly removed the blasters that were heating at his shoulders, searing my fingers as one went off before I could throw it away.

My hands tore at his chest plates, ripping with some difficulty through the armor. Cannon blasts went off nearest my ears, but I didn't pay them any attention other then actually just hearing them. I delved downward into the behemoth mech as he jerked his arms free and closed his hands half focused around my thighs. My hands beat at his spark chamber, caving it in as he bawled his pain for all in the vicinity to hear. I saw a small spark of light, and delved my talons into the hole, tearing it wider.

In my peripheral vision, I saw the mechs hands get ripped off of me, tugging a piece or two or armor with them. My hands delved into the hole in his chamber, closing around his large spark. The Decepticons body bucked savagely under me, his vocal processor letting out inhuman screams and screeches.

I let out a bark of shadowy laughter and closed my fists, a wave of Energon washing over my body as the spark imploded beneath my pressure. "Shouldn't have crossed my path, Decepticon." I spat.

Shoving myself away, I stood and faced Prime as he threw the arms of the Decepticon away. My gaze locked with his and he opened his mouth to say something. "Don't antagonize me, Prime." I warned. "If you know what's good for you, you would back away." I turned and launched at the next Decepticon before Optimus could get more then my name out.

"Do it." Mother whispered. "Your making mommy sad, you don't want to make mommy sad, do you?" No… I don't… "Gooooooood. Then attack Prime. He's the reason for aaaallll your troubles." I snarled as an answer and swiped a small Decepticon up into my hand. It gave a squeal as I crushed it from the chassis down.

"Let me help you, my lovely daughter." Mother cooed. "I can help you in ways others would only dream of." I felt her pushing harshly against my mind. It made me cry out and bash my face against the helm of the Decepticon I was fighting. "Shhh, love, don't fight me. Let me in. Let me in. Let me out."

I felt the haze take over me. I no longer seemed to know time, faces, or anything other then destruction and carnage. The passage of time seemed to stop, my eyes seeing no change in faces, nor feeling the energon running from my wounds. How did I get wounds? I don't know… The haze was thick, like pudding, and difficult to move in.

I can hear screams. Such horrible screams. Something's gone mad, but what? Am I fighting it? Is someone hurt? If someone is, Ratchet and Jolt might need me… I can feel the feelings of joy and elation at what I had been doing, ebbing away quickly. What's happening out there?

"Something wonderful." Mother answered. "Would you like to see?"

The image was shoved forward without my answer.

Across the grounds were Decepticon bodies piled on top of one another. Energon was flowing freely, like a large blue pool. Some parts were purple, where I could see the remains of humans smeared across the ground like some demonic abstract painting. Beautiful and gruesome, all in one. Sunstreaker was down, missing a long golden leg, but not out. He was shooting at any Decepticon that came near him, while Sideswipe guarded him from anything that got near. Ratchet was fighting with Ironhide against a large seeker, defiantly bigger then Optimus. Prime was grappling with the smaller seeker I had grounded earlier. The others were nowhere that my optics could read. Everyone was damaged to some extent.

I… I want my twins. I want Sunstreaker, I want Sideswipe… I want to go back to when we were happy… I… I don't want any of this to happen. I don't want them to die! Let me out! Let me out!

"No, love, I'm in control now. You get to fade away into nothingness while I reign supreme." Mother cackled, any trace of what she had previously said gone.

I began to fight myself, tearing at my mind and ripping at the edges, fighting like the caged animal I am. I let my inner voice scream, and screech, ringing like a wailing alarm through the dense dark fog. I tore at anything and everything that I could, and then finally I found purchase, in the very grooves that Mother had dug herself from my mind. I clawed frantically towards the surface, Mothers anger and rage filling me again, driving me. I don't like being controlled.

When my mind cleared for the most part, a thinly veiled layer still fucking with my mind, Mother sucked back down into the darkness of which I had been imprisoned, I found myself snarling into the face of a terrified Decepticon. My mouth mask was cracked, along with some of my faceplates, and drawn back, bearing my face for the world to see. My claws are dug deep into the Decepticons neck.

Anger, hate, envy, bloodlust, carnage, elation, joy. The insanity. The feelings came rushing back, as Mother cooed to me. "Sorry love, I just didn't want to share. I like it too."

I gave a dismal smile, and then ripped my hand back, spraying energon and other coolants into the air. Shoving my hand in side the sputtering mech, I found a hole in the top of his spark chamber. Shoving my hand in, I grasp the soft object and disconnected it from the chamber, but left it beating in a puddle of energon.

I stood up, energon squirting out of a ruptured cable in my side. My hand flew to cover it, but I could find myself caring less and less about it. Then I let my hand fall away. Turning, my leg quavered. I looked down. Part of my calf area was missing, even my protoform. I blinked. I didn't feel it at all. My shoulder cannons were nonexistent now; large holes were in place of where they used to be.

I heard someone approaching from behind, and whirled with a roar, intent on killing what ever Decepticon that was going to try and sneak up on me. My arm flung out, claws spread wide with the intent to shred wires. But my arm was caught. I swung the other. It, too, was caught. I stared, snarling viciously into the face of Ratchet.

Mother's voice whispered sweetly in my mind, brushing painfully against my consciousness. "Your angry at him. He did this, him, Prime, Elita, and her sparkling. They did this too you."

He helped do this to me. He brought back all the memories. He brought back all the pain, all the things I felt. He made me this way. He did it. Him and Prime, they made me like this. Elita-1 too. Her and her fucking sparkling. Eradication. Eradication. Yes.

"Nightstrider?"

I tried to yank myself away, twisting as much as I could and swinging my leg up to kick away. He was fast, moving both of my hands to one of his, and then Ratchet caught my leg gently, his fingers curling tightly around the armor. I shrieked wordlessly at him, rolling my helm forward to bash it into his chassis. It did nothing, accept give me a head ache.

"Are you in there?" He shook me slightly. I snarled in Ratchet's face.

"Shut the hell up." I roared. "Let me go!" I pulled again, wrenching my leg away. I used it to try and give me leverage, pulling further on my arms to try and get him to let go.

"Primus, forgive me." Ratchet uttered. I watched him raise his free hand up, and then he swung down, giving me an open handed slap hard enough to send my head flailing towards the side. There was black paint on his hand from my helm. "Snap out of it, the real Nightstrider isn't some mindless murderer." In a fluid movement, his hand sailed back and backhanded me. My head flew to the side again. More black paint on his hand.

I felt the last veil of smog clear from my mind. I saw Ratchet fully, my mind blissfully clear. No Mother speaking in my ear. No Presence at the edge of my mind. Blank. Peaceful. Calm. The insanity was tucked away, for the most part, and now I could see, hear, and feel everything in clarity. I felt my wounds, the Decepticon energon coating me, the human blood that was splashed across my frame from being ground pounded several times.

"Ratchet?" I croaked.

His hand came up to cup my face, and I let the visor slide back so he could look me in the optics. "Your back?"

"What have I done?" I choked.

Ratchet shook his head as he let my hands go. My claws slid back in, I wouldn't need them. He slipped his arm under my knees and then scooped me up. "Too much, youngling, to much for one such as you."

I gave another choked noise. A half bit sob. "I want my twins." I choked. "I want my papa too. But he's gone."

"He's not gone, he's right over there, fighting that seeker."

I jerked slightly. A spasm almost. "He's gone from my spark. I'm alone, so alone. Can I see the twins?" I asked. He glanced down at me, his yellow armor tainted a blue from the energon. Ratchet's steps bounced me slightly, as he stepped over bodies. "Just for a moment? I know what you need to do. I just want to see them one more time, while I'm me."

"I would rather not risk it, but yes. I will allow it."

Ratchet carried me as swiftly as he could to the twins. They were happy to see me, and I was snatched by Sideswipe almost immediately as soon as I was close enough that he didn't have to leave Sunstreaker. I was settled down between the two of them, Sunstreaker curling a protective arm around me, and Sideswipe gently rubbing my damaged armor. Ratchet stood off to the side, guarding and observing what we did.

I gave another half choked sob as the sounds of battle began to die away in the distance. "God, I love you both." I admitted. "I want to stay with you both."

"Then stay." Sunstreaker ordered. "You're not going anywhere."

"Your ours, Princess, we'll face Unicron time and time again for you."

I said nothing for the moment, only taking the time to lean up and firmly lip lock both of them, one at a time. I hoped I would convey each and every ounce of love I have for them. I don't know if it did though.

"I wish I could." I coughed. "I wish I could stay for ever. I wish none of this happened, and that it would have turned out perfect. I wish a lot of things. None of them seem to come true though."

I was crushed between the two as they hugged me, one on each side. "What do you mean, 'I wish I could stay'?" Sunstreaker asked.

I gave a long exhale. "You both know already." I answered. "I have my sanity right now, but it was gone not five minutes ago. While I'm still me, we're going to end it."

"Your not going." Sideswipe stated. "We just found you, we wont lose you like this. No." He rubbed his helm against mine. "We wont say goodbye."

"Then don't." I said. I wiggled away and then kneeled between them. I reached out and gently grasped at their faces, laying my hands softly to their cheek plates as I felt two single energon tears roll down my faceplates. "Until we meet again. Until all are one."

One hand came up and clasped over each of my hands, as the twins thickly returned my words. "Until we meet again. Until all are one."

Something wet touched my hand from Sunstreaker, as I caught sight of a single thin energon tear line dripping from his eye. "We love you, with everything we are." He said.

"And I, you." I nodded.

We hugged again, tightly, oh so tightly. I heard several pairs of approaching footsteps, which stopped in a circle around us. When I pulled back and stood in an unbalanced way, I found that everyone was here. I scanned them, taking note that everyone only looked exhausted, but no fatal injuries. The humans, severely down in numbers, looked like they wanted to drop dead. Epps, Will, and Fig were still alive, so that was good.

I scanned across them again, and then my optics landed on Optimus. I should have felt happy, and I as myself did. It also brought Mother raging back with the fury of a million angry hornets. She roared back, slamming against my consciousness like a battering ram. The unwelcoming blackness of the insanity returned like a cancer, shoving me away and throwing me feelings I would never feel upon normal circumstances.

Curling in upon myself, I hunched my shoulders and pressed a hand to my helm. I gave Optimus a tired smile. Forcing myself to focus on Ratchet, I gave a groan. "We need to do it now. I'm losing it again, Ratchet."

Ratchet, stepping morbidly, walked forward and guided me further away from the twins. I stood calmly, uncurling myself, and giving him a clear shot of my chassis. As a medic, it would be easy for him to pin point where my spark was. I let my Mini Compulsion Rockets appear, still heated even after all this time. I stood as straight as I could, taking what pride I could salvage and using that as my will to stand and fight the insanity that is gnawing at the bit.

Ratchet stood in front of me, tall and yellow. His arm was transformed into a laser, one I had seen perform many a medical recovery. Fitting, really, that the laser is the weapon of healing, and it's going to be my death. "Are you ready?"

I gave a wince. "Yeah, as I'm ever going to be." I cast everyone a quick sweeping look and then landed on Ratchet again. "Until we meet again."

He nodded. "Until we meet again." The laser began to heat up, an eerie red glow coming from it.

I looked skyward, up to the clouded blue sky. Tapping into my internal music program, I started playing 'Country Roads' by John Denver at a low tone. I was going home. Home where I belong. I heard the tell tale hum of the laser, and then I sighed. I waited to feel the sudden burning pain, or to feel the sudden blackness over take me. I got neither.

The shot went wide into the concrete as a jet engine went off, and a Decepticon went sailing over us at high speeds, his cockpit closing over something small.

"LEO!" I heard Elita scream. "BRING HIM BACK!"

I didn't even think, to be honest. I let the anger consume me as I lit my mini compulsion rockets, the heat from them blasting out and shooting me skyward. There was a chorus of cries from below, but they were droned out as I forced the rockets to max out as fast as I could. My claws sprung out, my face twisted, and I felt my optics darken angrily.

I neared the seeker, who looked to be some type of military plane, we were fairly far out over the ocean. When I got close enough, I swerved up, and then made myself slam down on his wings, sinking my toe claws deep into the metal.

He shrieked an unholy sound, and then he started to spiral. He was trying to throw me off. Throwing my thrusters back at full force, I got him turned around and flying back to Diego Garcia. I growled and sunk my hand talons into the soft and sensitive metal around the cockpit, cutting it roughly.

It took a bit to end up back over the island, barrel rolls, loops, twirls, and other shit didn't help any. The cockpit was removed shortly before we reached it, and I now held the sparkling to my chassis. He was mine to hurt if I so pleased, not for Decepticon hands…

He was jittering, shuddering, clinging to me, and crying his little heart out. I roared, taking a swipe at the nose of the plane. He screamed, a guttural sound, as my claws left long lines in the metal.

Purposefully tearing the metal in a ragged way so he's crash, I threw myself backwards, spiraling downwards with Leo firmly in my grasp. I watched with a sick sense of satisfaction as the Seeker crashed nose first into the ground, and self-destructed. The blaze was beautiful.

When my feet touched the ground in a thick puddle of energon and human remains, I felt the anger rise up in a tidal wave, crashing down heavily on my mind and soul. I pulled Leo back, as he was cradled in my hand, and then really looked at him. He wasn't crying any more, more or less looking up at me curiously. I gazed blandly at him; the mad glint I knew was present in my optics mocking his calm blue ones.

"Leo!" I heard Elita shout. I looked up with a loud snarl, my lip plates curling in a feral way.

Everyone had come rushing to where I landed, around several piles of dead Decepticons.

"Elita no!" Ratchet snagged her arm.

She thrashed. "Let me go Ratchet! That's my sparkling!"

"In the hands of something that is currently more dangerous then the Decepticon." He reminded. I snarled at him.

"Sweetspark, please, remember your not like this!" Optimus pleaded. "You're our daughter, my daughter, and I love you. It hurts me deeply to see you like this."

I jolted at the familiar nickname.

"No," mother hissed. "Don't listen to him, he lies, lies, lies!"

The one hand holding Leo trembled, and my free hand came up to clutch at my helm. I let out a roar. I don't want her there! This is my mind!

"Take him!" I thrust him out. "Take him quick! Before I…" I didn't even have to finish; Elita was there, taking him from me, and then moving away. I clutched my helm and roared again.

Leo reached up and waved his hands at me. I felt a nudging in my mind, young, gentle, free, untainted. I shoved it away. It had to be that damn voice, trying another way. It had to be, it had to be…

Leo screwed up his face, and then I felt him shove his way through my mental barriers. Suddenly my mind was filled, the darkness was gone, filled by love and worry. I felt them, my parents and sibling. They were back. Leo brought me back. I was home.

My processor clicked off, and I hit the ground out cold.


	56. Country Roads Take Me Home

(_**Hey, sorry for the long wait. I had to have my computer completely wiped, so I lost everything because we couldn't get it pulled. I had over 1000 viruses in my computer, because there was no virus protection. What. So. Ever.**_

_**All 55 chapters and the almost complete 56**__**th**__** were lost, too corrupted to even read. It's just kinda broken my heart to have to deal with that kind of loss.**_

_**Everything. Every freaking thing.**_

_**Everything comes in threes. First, the Subaru died, then the comp, and the Mini Van died last night, stranding my mother and I in the middle of nowhere for two hours. It sucks, majorly sucks.**_

_**Not much else to say; thanks to all my reviewers, readers, favoriters, and just folks who read it because they're bored. I hope you reread it while I work to produce the next chapter for ya'll!**_)

When my mind came to consciousness, the first thing I noticed was that I could feel the ray's of sunlight beating down unmercifully on my lower half, the top shaded by some form of shadow I'm guessing due to the cooler temperature. The next thing I knew was that I could not hear any whirring of machinery or the hiss of hydraulics that told me any bots were near by. I was alone, wherever I was. If the med bad had been too badly damaged, then I would have likely ended up somewhere on the hard tarmac outside once it was cleared of Decepticon debris.

Only it wasn't hard Tarmac beneath me. I felt the softness of grass, fresh and lively, no hard stubbles or dead feeling patches. Just living, healthy grasses roughly six inches deep. I clenched my fists around a handful, waiting to hear the familiar metallic sound of my fingers curling into my palm. It never came. Instead, I was treated with the sensation of the grass blades tickling my fingers and palm softly, like an old lovers caress. I could feel my own hand as it clenched, touching various spots.

A moderately loud voce started singing, the words floating over the slight breeze that seemed to roll through the place, sweetly hinted with a taste of sassy Southern drawl. A guitar, old and well used from the sound of it, twanged out methodically to the rhythm of which the voice sang. I recognized the voice, one I had heard so long ago, yet within such short time. I knew it, yet I didn't.

"Almost heaven, west Virginia. Blue ridge Mountains, Shenandoah River. Life is old there, older than the trees; Younger than the mountains, blowing like a breeze."

I opened my optics, only to be blinded by the light of day. I shouldn't have been, seeing as our optics are usually quick to adjust. I let go of my hold on the grass, and shifted my arm into view once I could see. My optics widened marginally, in an almost comical way I'm sure. My arm was that soft red and sun kissed (**freckles.**) color that I had always seemed to have as a human. I held up the other one. It was the same too.

I reached gently with one hand and felt my face. Same slightly rounded as I had been as a human, my nose felt the same, ears, eyebrows, and lips too. My legs, my skin telling me that I was clad in Levi Jeans and a T-shirt across my chest, and my torso told me that I could feel the grass as it shifted, lived, and kept living on within it's usual style. I could feel that I was soft, fragile, weak, squishy, and irrevocably human, with each breath I took that expanded my chest.

"Country roads, take me home to the place, I be-long. West Virginia; mountain momma. Take me home, country roads."

I pushed myself up into sitting position, blinking once or twice to clear my vision of unwanted light and other stuff. My jaw dropped with an audible pop. I was home, in Oregon. The field was in front of me; the herd of our Brahma cattle were mulling about, chewing on grass or relaxing in the sunlight. The old dirt pathway stood out from the shimmering, waving, green grass. At the end, I could see our house, an old weathered mobile home, and the barn, standing tall and sturdy like it always had; even through the toughest of storms.

I worked my way to my feet, stumbling slightly because I haven't walked as a human for a couple years, and leaned against the broad trunk of the tree that was shading me. When I had most of my coordination back to where I could walk in an almost non-drunken way, I ambled out into the sunlight. The cattle looked up from their grazing, and acknowledged me with slow blinks of their big brown eyes.

"All my memories, gather round her. Miner's lady, stranger to blue water. Dark and dusty, painted on the sky; Misty taste of moonshine, teardrop in my eye." The sound of acoustics twanged loudly along with the femininely southern drawl.

I heard the sound of barking. It was coming in close to me, hard and fast. Then I was abruptly bowled over, once more landing on the ground, whereupon I was sat on by a big familiar bundle of poofy black and white fur. I was smothered in kisses as I ran my hands through her fur.

"Storm." I murmured. She stopped and looked down at me. Gone were the sagging spots of skin from her strokes; gone were the cheeks sunken with age; limbs twisted with age and arthritis were no more. No more tumor spots, or doggy wrinkles. Her fur looks shiny, and feels like silk, much like it was when she was much younger. She looks healthy, lively, and not suffering.

I pushed her off, and then sat up, before bringing her into my grip to hug her. She leaned into me, whining happily, her nose coming up and tucking itself under my chin. Storm's soft pink tongue flicked out as she licked my collarbone. "I missed you." I said. Storm pulled away, going to stand in front of me, giving me the signal that she always had used when she wanted me to go somewhere with her. So I stood up and complied with her.

"Country roads, take me home to the place, I be-long; West Virginia, mountain momma. Take me home, country roads."

Storm lead me up the dirt road, the cattle moving out of the way for the border collie and I to pass through. She lead me up the road towards the house, and I took a peak at everything from up closer.

The flower garden that my Mama had kept growing, all hardy plants because neither of us had a green thumb, was in full bloom, the bright vibrant colors of the rhododendrons shone like little neon beacons in the sunlight. My Mama's prized azaleas were budding, along with the many other plants. The wooden archway that leads into the yard was covered with the climbing plants, which were flowered with gorgeous purple and white flowers.

"I hear her voice, in the mornin' hours she calls to me. The radio reminds me of my home far a-way; and drivin' down the road I get a feeling that I should have been home yesterday, yesterday."

The music was loud now, coming from up on the deck in the shade, where my wandering eyes could not see.

As Storm lead me through the yard, and up the deck, I could see a shape holding a guitar seated in an old chair, identical to one my human Mama had used to sit in during the hot summer days. Storm stopped a little bit out of the shade, and I kept walking, right into the shade, which had obscured my vision.

"Country roads, take me home to the place, I be-long; West Virginia, mountain momma. Take me home, country roads." The strumming trailed off.

There sat the last person I ever thought I would see again. Her hair, long and spirally, was in a ponytail, though it resembled a wildfire due to the spirals and crimson color. Her face, ageless to my eyes, was exactly as I remembered it being. Thin, but strong, much resembling a thinner version of mine with the structure. Pale and freckled, blue-green eyes twinkling at me. Small wrinkles at the corners of her mouth and eyes, the only age sign that said she had years of smiles and laughter. She was dressed in jeans, bare foot, and a plane T-shirt on.

"Mama?" I breathed. I blinked, flabbergasted. "Am I dead?"

Mama set her guitar down and stood up, her height so much shorter then mine. She stood at five foot five inches, and every bit as I remember. She opened her arms for me. "Mah baby girl. Nawh, ya aint' dead, love. Now, come give ya Mama some sugar will ya?"

That was all I needed, the sound of her voice, the warm drawl of her southern accent. I surged forward, my arms wrapping around her. I towered over her by a good ten inches, so I ended up heaving her off the ground and holding her to me. She even smelled like mom, cigarettes and alfalfa hay.

When I let her down, she kept my face close to her own by tugging on my own. "Look at ya, ya done gone and grown into a purty women aint ya?" Mama ran her hand down the side of my face. "Ah wish Ah had been there fur it. Missed ah lot didn't ah?"

I blinked down at her. "Yeah Mama. You missed a lot. If I'm not dead, then where am I?"

"In yur mind, baby girl." Mama answered. "Ah'm here tah tell ya that Ah love ya dearly, and Ah'm glad ya found ya a family. Even if it is ah bunch'ah robots." She gave me an Eskimo kiss. "Ah'm always watchin' over ya, sugar, ya nevah really alone. Ah like tha twins, jus' so ya know. They're sweet boys, real honest." She pulled me into a hug again and then tugged me to a bench along the side of the deck. "Ah gotta send ya back in ah minute, baby girl."

"I don't want to go yet!" I said. "I just got to see you again! I'm not ready to lose you again!"

Mama tsk'ed. "Ah told ya, Ah'm always there, even if ya cant see meh." She held out my palm and traced it. "Ya met that Primus fella?"

I sighed. "Yeah."

"Ah real gentle man tha one is." Mama let out a small laugh. "Jus so ya know, Ah expect lots ah grand babies from ya, even if ah cant spoil 'em."

I leaned over, and just like I had when I was younger, I shifted so I could tuck my head under her chin. "Okay Mama. I plan on having kids eventually."

We sat there for a bit, I don't know how long, just being with one another, loving one another. Then mama made a noise. "Its time tah go, baby girl."She stood, pulling me with her.

I sighed. "Can I see you again?"

Mama shook her head. "No, love, ya can't. Was kinda ah one time deal wit tha god dude, ya know?" I felt my eyes well up. I wouldn't ever see her again. "Now Now, don'cha be cry'in on meh. Ah'm always in ya heart, ya hear meh? If ya need meh, Ah'm always here."

"Yeah, okay mama." I nodded.

"Alright, jus close ya eyes now." I took one last hard look at her face, trying to imprint it into my mind forever.

Then I closed my eyes. I felt her bring my head down to her level, and then her lips kissed my forehead. Everything faded black.

I came back online to the sound of something beating next to me. I felt numb, but underlying the numbness was a deep pulsating ache. A pain. It hurt, and I ended up seizing in a breath as my optics opened.

I came almost literally face to face with the startling blue eyes and yellow face of Ratchet. "Primus, femme, your finally awake." He leaned out of my vision for a moment, giving me a good look at a very tattered roof of the med bay. "Hey, Jolt, go to the next room over and let the twins know she's awake! I just comm. Linked her family; Prime, Elita, and Leo are on their way here now."

"Leo." I rasped. "How is he?" I tried to move my arms, but they wouldn't respond quite yet.

"Quiet now, you've been out of it for a week now. Your body refused to heal itself, so your still banged up. Our supplies got ruined, and we're waiting on shipments." He shifted something on the bed I was laying on. It leaned upward at the waist, and gave me a view of my lower half covered by a sheet. "Your leg is bad, Nightstrider. Very bad. If I were any other medic, I would say to screw it, and just give you a whole new one, but I'm not. I know what needs done."

"I see." I rasped. I shifted my head slightly. "You didn't answer me about Leo. How is he?"

"Well, seeing as you wont stop talking, Leo is fine. A little shaken up, but otherwise healthy. How much do you remember?"

I closed my optics with a whine from deep within my vocal processors. I could remember everything as vividly as if I just was doing it. "Everything." I answered as I opened my eyes again.

"… Don't care if I'm missing a leg!" Sunstreaker's voice rose up from a room somewhere to the left of me. "We want to see our intended!" There was some clattering and banging around in the next area.

"I'd like to see them please?" I asked.

Ratchet shook his head. "Not today. Tomorrow. You need to go to sleep, so I can start on repairs."

"But isn't-"

"Yes, they're coming, but they can see you while you sleep." Ratchet answered.

He moved and fetched something, then injected it into one of my cables. It immediately started to make me tired, and I felt everything swirling away as Ratchet uncovered my legs. One was nasty, horribly so. That was the last thing I saw, before it descended into darkness.


	57. Circuit Breaker

(_**Hey, hows it hanging? Things are looking up, even if the cold I have is kicking my aft, and while I'm still not satisfied with the chapter output, I hope you all like this chapter~ **_

_**I can't believe I have four hundred reviews. When I looked at the total this morning, my mom asked why I head desked. I actually kinda half passed out in surprise~ I still don't believe it!**_

_**Special shout to Zayren Heart, my brain twin, for keeping my spirits up and keeping my mind fairly on topic. Hehehe, she'll know what I mean when I say StarsCream XD.**_

_**A belated shout out to MeLikeCake, who left a humongous review on GIBTH, and to whom I replied too, but haven't gotten a re-reply from yet~**_

_**Further more, I hope you enjoy this chappie, because it is kinda short, but it's sweet. Kinda. Not my best work, but I'm fighting a three week cold, I cant do better at the moment, and I hate making ya'll wait on me.**_)

You know the groggy feeling you get when you come out of an anesthetic sleep? Yeah, that's how I woke up. Not a whole lot of fun if you ask me. I could feel everything now, save my wounds because my systems told me that Ratchet had my pain receptors dimmed down as far as they would go, how each thought that passed through my mind was blissfully pure and untainted by insanity. My processor was free of the plaguing voice, my spark felt light and new, like it had been before everything happened. I was free, so blissfully free! The freeness that I feel, it just puts my mood much better, groggy or not.

I could feel the bonds to my family, the strongest one being Optimus. Leo, I could feel, was in a deep and blissfully unworried sleep in the arms of what I think was Chromia. Elita, her love and deep bone busting worry over shadowing a slight frustration, was pacing outside the door to the med bay from what I picked up. Optimus was with her, though he seemed to be a slight bit more agitated. It seems they were coming to visit me today. I pressed onto Optimus and Elita's bonds, giving them my groggy love and what I hope was a kind of hug gesture.

I opened my optics to be greeted by low lighting, my body stripped of my armor from the neck down so I was only in my silver protoform armor and from the waist area down I was covered in a thick blue sheet, and Ratchets backside waving about in front of something. My audio receptors were graced with the sounds of Ratchet cursing up a storm as he stood in front of a giant box that was apparently hidden behind a cabinet. "-All the glitch slagged things that could go wrong, the fragging electrical box obtains a short in it. All I do is start up the fragging energon machine again and it slagging dies on me! Now I have Elita on my aft because she can't get in!"

I let my vocal processors chirp for a moment, and then I suggest, "Have you tried flipping the circuit breaker? That might be the problem."

Ratchet visibly twitches for a moment, before he half turns. "Good to see you are awake, Nightstrider. How do you feel?"

"Half fragged to the pit and back. Cant feel shit, but I know its there." I answered. "You didn't answer me, old mech."

"Old mech my aft." Ratchet grumped, "No, I have not. It never seems like it could be anything simple." He twitched his arms, and then the lights totally died. He waited a few seconds, and then he flipped something again. With a thunking noise, the lights and systems started to boot up.

"Told you." I rasped. Taking a moment, I stiffly swiveled my head to look about the room. Again, it was just Ratchet and I, another door that lead to what I'm assuming is the room the twins are in was slightly ajar. "Can I have some energon?" I asked, focusing again on Ratchet.

Ratchet moved to the front door, flipping the locks and other problematic things off. "After your visits yes. How do you feel mentally?"

"Free." I answered. "Free, light, and not pressured. No violent tendencies, I don't have the urge to chop you into little teeny tiny mech pieces."

Ratchet, who had strolled over to his desk while I had been expressing what I was feeling, scribbled something on a data pad. "That's good, very good." He said. "After your impatient parents leave, I'll take you to your intended."

Sideswipe and Sunstreaker. My twins, mine. "Works for me." I chirped. "How's Sunstreaker's leg?"

Ratchet stilled in putting his data pad away and then exhaled heavily though his air intakes. He gave me a deeply troubled look, one that usually adorned his face, however this time I could see via his optics that there was something that bothered him deeper then that. "Slow going, as is yours. We don't have all the material we need, because the human government wants to barter for it. And Sideswipe managed to get his foot blown off somehow, so he's stuck in here too." He made an angry noise, and then slammed the desk drawer shut. "I don't see why we would need to barter for something that we work our afts off for!" he pressed a hand to his faceplates. "I can't progress, and frag it all if it isn't due to the American government!"

"Try contacting the Japanese government, they might help. Or China. Egypt, I don't think will help after me mauled their pyramids, but you can give it a shot." I offered. "Other governments, if you word it right, will want many ways to outdo each other."

"I'll talk to Prime. I don't think he'll allow such a thing though…" Ratchet sighed. "I'm going to go check on the twins, your parents will be in as soon as the power comes online. When they go, I'll move you in here to be with your intended, alright?" Ever the same Ratchet, he didn't really wait for my response. He just kind of walked by and left into the next room.

When he wasn't in the room any longer, I took the moment to lift the sheet and take a look at my leg. I dropped the sheet a moment later. "Oh, gross." I groaned. It was mostly gone, my leg. You could see where it was starting to grow back, but you could still see bright blue energon leaking into the almost clear bandages, and it made my optics twich when I could watch my own cables pulse with life.

The power returned itself fully a few minutes later, and then the door opened. In charged the purple armored form of Elita followed more calmly by Optimus. They bee-lined it for my bed.

Elita settled on my left side and gently took my hand, like if she held it any tighter I would break, and held it while gently rubbing the back of it with her thumb. I guess in a way, since I'm in proto form, my body is weaker to harsh pressures and stuff. "I'm glad you're awake." She said to me.

"I'm glad I am too." I murmured to her.

Optimus took my right side, settling his enormous girth down with a surprising nimbleness. His hand went to take my own, but he froze and started pulling back. Why did he…? Oh yeah… I had been excessively nasty to him when my mind was being flushed down the shitter of insanity. I reached my own hand out, grabbing his gently. I cast him a smile and nudged his bond. He smiled back at me, his large hand folding around my smaller one. "I feel you, sweetspark." He said. "You're not leaving again." That happened to be an order. I could feel it in my spark.

I nodded to him. "I don't plan on it." My back hydraulics gave a pained noise as I made myself lean forward. I gave a grimace at the pain that shot through me.

Elita was faster then Optimus at pressing a hand to my chest. "No, sweetspark, don't lean forward. Just rest, and get better okay?"

I shook my head. "Not until I get hugs. I missed hugs. I missed our hugs."

Optimus was the first to lean himself forward and hug me as much as he could. I'm a lot smaller without my armor on, so that makes it slightly more difficult to give a full on hug without the chance of crushing me. With hoe we were positioned, my head rested just a little bit below Optimus's audio receptor. "I missed you, my daughter. I missed your presence in my spark, and while Leo is our biological child, he can never take your place in our sparks. You're both our children. We can't just have one."

"I know." I murmured to him. "I know. I'm just glad we're a family again… I love you, Papa."

I heard his engine rumble happily, sending vibrations into my face. "And I, you, my sweetspark."

"Hey." Elita interrupted. "You greedy mech, share our daughter will you?"

"And if I don't want to?"

"I'll make you."

I smiled involuntarily. Pulling back, I turned to the left, giving a small wince as once more my back and waist area protested such movements. I wrapped my arms around Elita's neck area, and gently buried my face in her neck cables. She was, after all, still smaller then me by several feet. Her arms wound around my chest, her fingers just brushing a sore spot on my back. I edged slightly away with a small hiss.

"Sorry." Elita apologized.

I shook my head against her. "No, no, its alright. I know you didn't mean too." I felt her arm move up and gently run over my helm, tickling the antenna there. I purred to her. "Thanks Mom."

She purred back at me.

I pulled away, and gently lowered myself back on the elevated bed with a long hiss of both my hydraulics and myself. When I was all settled, I moved the sheet a little higher, so it reached the bottom of my chest. I then gave Elita a long look.

"Do you think there's any chance I can convince you to maybe get me some energon?" I asked. My tank was a little low, from what my scans told me. "Please?"

Elita nodded. "Sure, love. The special blend you like I presume?"

I nodded. "If you would." She nodded and left, heading to wherever she was going to get it. I guess she heard about the energon thing shorting the power out. I looked to Optimus. "You heard know the government wants more work done by us for materials, right?"

He hefted a sigh. "Not even awake for an earth hour and your already meddling in things you cant help. Where did you hear this?"

"Ratchet tends to vent to patients when there's something bothering him." I said. "Now, he's going to ask you about it later."

"I figured." Optimus pressed his hand to his face and sighed again. "Sweetspark, there's nothing I can do. They want our weapons, that's what they'll give materials for in return."

"Then try some others." I said. "Governments are always trying to outdo one another. Try Japan, China, Russia, maybe Egypt. I don't know if Egypt will help, seeing as one of their pyramids was destroyed…"

"I'll think on it, sweet spark." Optimus said slowly. He reached out and ran a couple fingers over my helm. I purred. "I really am happy that your okay, and that your back in our sparks."

"So am I." I agreed. "But I'm not moving back."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker are my intended, and I'm happy to remain with them." I said. "That doesn't mean we wont move to a room closer to yours if you'd like." I offered.

Optimus nodded. "Yes, we'd like that. I'll arrange for everything to be done."

Elita came rolling calmly in, a cube of my favorite energon in her hands. She took her place at my side again and handed it to me. "Here you go sweetspark."

"Thanks." I took a sip and felt like I could purr. It tasted so good, sour but not to sour, leaving a pleasant tingle to my senses.

It was about an hour later that they left, long after I'd finished my energon cube, I was getting tired and I havnt even gotten to see my mech's yet. We had talked about lots of things, including what happened after I offlined in the battle. Apparently, they managed to find a still living Decepticon, one who was missing both legs. He's now in the brig, being guarded by Prowl or who ever is on duty.

They lost a lot of men and women of the human part of NEST. I never paid much attention, but apparently we had a small army of three hundred twenty three humans. Now we have fifty-six left, fifteen of them women and the rest men, including Fig, Epps, and Will.

Sideswipe apparently got his foot/ mid shin blown off by the downed Decepticon when Sideswipe went to grab the 'con. Personally, it sounds like it would hurt a hell of a lot.

"They're waiting for you." Ratchet rumbled. He was quick, scooping me up off that bed, blanket and all, and then toting me to the twin's room. He was careful going through the door, so he didn't bump my leg into it.

I was toted to a bed that was strategically placed near, not quite next to, the twins.

"Princess!" Sideswipe called. His leg was wrapped in a white sheet so that nothing could 'contaminate' it. He was on a big bed with Sunstreaker. "Your awake!"

"I am." I agreed.

"Ratchet!" Sunstreaker growled. "Ether scoot that berth over next to ours, or I'll go to her. I have one leg! I can hop if I fragging have to!"

"Alright, alright, you fragging glitch heads." Ratchet snapped. "I'll move the bed if you promise not to touch her leg. I don't need the cables rupturing."

Sideswipe's face twisted in a scowl. "We would _never_ intentionally harm our intended."

It progressed from there. My bed ended up being pressed to theirs, but Sunstreaker was lying on it. I, by some odd movement, ended up in-between the two, so I could be equally cuddled.

I fell asleep curled up to Sunstreaker, with Sideswipe spooned to me.


	58. If I See It

(_**READ THE NOTE PLEASE, IT HAD GOOD INFORMATION IN IT THAT WILL HELP YOU AND ME!**_

_**Hope ya'll like it~ worked fairly hard on it, even if it is shorter~**_

_**Oh, and for those of you who would like further interactions with me, try signing up for an online game called BiteFight . com . It's a load of fun, but to let you know, I'm on server 1, and I'm a Werewolf. I go by LunarHollowWolf if you wana give me a ring~ I'm trying to build up my pack~**_

_**Yes, I felt like shamelessly advertising XD. Do it for Nightstrider!**_

_**I have to many thanks to give out, and I would love to give a special shout out to my favorite drink in the world! Vanilla Chai Tea! It's delicious, and helps my muddled mind focus on writing~**_

_**Note for all the world to know, if you put the word Repeat between Youtube and the whole .com spot, (IE youtube {repeat} .com / bunch of random letters and numbers; then what ever you watch will be on repeat. Tis how I'm listening to music for this chapter at the moment.**_

_**Without further adieu, I give you chapter 38~**_)

I woke sometime early in the noon time the next day, still spooned to the guys, with someone touching me. I didn't feel any pain from my wounds, so that lead me to guess that Ratchet had given me one of his kick-ass robot drugs that made me feel like I'm almost on cloud nine. Sunstreaker was awake, his hand gently running down my helm, fingering my antennas and my audio receptors. My optics, being closed, were explored by his fingers too. Ether he's awake, or he's a subconscious bot who likes to pet and touch. I felt Sideswipe scoot closer to me, his head scooting over to bury in my back though he didn't touch the sensitive scarred plantings. Hmm.

Shuttering my optics open, I blinked up at him. He was gazing at me with a soft look on his usually stick up the ass face. "Good afternoon babe." Sunstreaker murmured to me. "Did I wake you?" His optics are focused on me, completely, and we're close enough that I can watch the gears and parts that make up the iris like spot whirr and function. His head fins twitch slightly, though are fairly relaxed looking.

I sighed and nodded. "Yeah. Sleep is hard to maintain when someone is touching sensitive places." I arched an eyebrow plating at him.

"That was my goal." He chuckled. His hand came down and traced my faceplates, lingering on the edge of my mouth before tracing softly to my temple. "I'm glad those cracks in your face have healed. They looked like they had hurt a lot."

"They did." I agreed. The other eyebrow plate went to join the other. "May I ask why you wanted to wake me up? I'm not usually a morning bot."

His chassis vibrated slightly with a chuckle. "It's not morning, now is it?"

I shook my head. "No, I suppose its not." I sighed and squinted at him. "You didn't answer me."

He sent me saucy look. "My answer is so that I don't have to share you at the moment." Share me? But aren't he and his brother two halves of a whole bot? Sunstreaker scooted himself down slightly and pressed his mouth to mine in a long, sweet, and sensual kiss. His hand looped behind my head, and stroked tingling lines on my antenna's.

When we parted, he leaned up to nip harshly at my audio receptor. "Don't you _ever_ do that again, babe. Never, or we'll chain you to a berth and never let you see the light of the sun again." Sunstreaker rumbled at me. Bipolar much?

"He's right." Sideswipe rumbled from behind me. Looks like he's awake now too. "You have no idea how hard it was to simply sit there, while Ratchet pointed his laser at you. I wanted to get up and tear him to shreds." His hand trailed up my side, careful of the fresh weld that was in place of the severed cables that had made me bleed, and settled for pinching me, not roughly but not gently ether. "Do it again, princess, and I guarantee that you will never see daylight nor danger again."

"I don't plan on it." I said. Then I sighed. "I don't ever want to have to do that again." My armor clattered in a shiver. "It wasn't my fault ether. My mind was pretty much fragging with itself."

"Mmmhmmm. Excuses excuses." Sideswipe rumbled. He pulled himself up so he could lean over. "You got a taste of Sunstreaker, now it's my turn."

Sideswipe took my lips in his own, pressing gently to me and therefore pressing me more to Sunstreaker. Sunstreaker ran his free hand down the side of my body, gently massaging plates and all. Sideswipe, when he released me, trailed little butterfly kisses down to my neck cables. Sunstreaker then took up his brothers' place at ravishing my mouth.

"You know, babe, you rock the whole no armor gig." Sunstreaker murmured to me. "If only we weren't in such a shape…"

"We find it…" Sideswipe paused and considered his words. "Hard… not to simply bond with you now."

The little devils my mechs are. They gently ground their pelvic plates against mine, letting me get a good feel of their codpieces. It enticed a groan out of me, and I felt my body starting to heat up like it does when I'm out racing in the heat… but instead of exhilaration, its from something else entirely.

Oh my god. I felt little sparks within me when they did that. Sparks dancing along my skin. It felt good. Very good. Familiar too, the sense of arousal that I got from their vibes and from my own feelings. I was human once too, and I've had my fair share of arousal, though I don't recall going the whole way down the train line. Mmmmhmm. Do it again.

"Yessssss." I groaned. "Simply too bad."

"But…" Sunstreaker practically purred. "It doesn't mean we can't… _play._"

They ground again. My breath hitched. "_Play, yesss. Play is nice_." I hissed airily.

Grinding my hips slightly, as well as I could with limited movements; I earned myself little intakes of air. I did it again. "If you do that any more, we wont be able to help ourselves…" They hissed. I, in return, twitched my hips again.

Sideswipe's fingers roamed down towards my protoform crotch plating. A little more and…

With a loud bang, the twins recoiled from me. I started too, in surprise, twitching my leg in a way I probably shouldn't have, as it drew a pained inhalation from me. "Not in my med bay you don't! If I see it, I keep it!" Ratchet barked.

I dropped my head to the bed with a quiet exhale. That almost went to far… but I didn't want to stop… Ultimate cock-block that is Ratchet saves the day.

He strode over, his yellow armor glinting in the low lights, and leaned over Sunstreaker to scoop me up. "If you can't behave yourselves until she is fully grown, I will find a way to separate the three of you." He threatened. "You should know better, all three of you! None of you are in the correct shape for interfacing as it is, you would simply hurt yourselves even more."

I sighed as he toted me to a table in the main room. Gently setting me there, he subspaced some tools and a couple small scraps of metal. "Can you manage to flip yourself onto your front, or do I need to assist you?" My body gave protest at being used when it was in a fairly shitty condition, but I flipped myself over. "Good. Now be quiet. I need to simply check your injuries."

Simply check my injuries my scuffed silver protoform ass! It started out nice and gentle, or at least gentle for Ratchet. And then his touches got a wee bit rougher. I didn't say anything, because he was probably just doing it to let me know he was very disappointed at me. Ratchet's fingers gripped at my cables and wires just a little bit harder then normal, that was the next step. It hurt a lot more though, because he essentially was pressing into nerves and veins. Not pleasant at all.

He started rambling to himself in Cybertronian, uttering English curse words, and some very creative ones that I'm sure he made up on his own.

He tugged a little harder on my leg cable. "Ow." I grunted.

"Ow."

"Ouch."

"Ow!"

"Ouch!"

I gave a long hiss of my hydraulics. "Ouch! I get it, your pissed at the twins and I, but can you _please_ stop intentionally hurting me?"

He didn't seem to hear me, Ratchet just grumbled on in Cybertronian.

I jerked my leg slightly, making it ache but also getting his attention. His hand didn't loosen, nor let go of my leg, but Ratchet turned his head to scold me. "I said ouch, Ratchet. You're hurting me."

His hand loosened and let go. "Sorry Nightstrider."

"Your not normally this violent. I don't think I deserve that for getting in trouble. A little overboard don't you think?"

Ratchet shook his head at me. "That's not what's bothering me. I didn't mean to hurt you."

I nodded. "Alright. I have two good audios, unless you plan to dismantle those, so tell me what _is_ bothering you."

He sighed and patted my uninjured leg softly. "Optimus talked to the Japanese government."

"Oh?"

"Yes. They agreed, and are willing to help us if we give them technology that will help advance the communications industry." He trailed off with a sigh.

I shifted slightly so I could see him better. "I sense that there is more to this that's bothering you." I quirked.

He set what he had in his occupied hand aside and pressed the now empty hand to his faceplates. Ratchet groaned. "They want to meet one of the bot's they're going to be 'helping'." He sighed. "The ambassador wants to meet one of us, preferable he said, 'one who the medic needs our precious metals to help'. He wants it face to face, or they wont give us the metal."

"Is Japan the only one Papa contacted?" I questioned.

Ratchet shook his head. "No. Egypt declined, saying they didn't want to help those who destroyed their pyramids. China said they would help, but they wanted a couple bots to go and work for them in return. Russia, Germany, and many more are out of the question, they wanted weapons."

I sighed. "Alright, I'll do the meeting with the ambassador. When?"

He gave me a long look. "Only if you're going to be up to it. I know it might be hard after almost-"

I made a noise and interrupted. "When."

"Three days from now."


	59. Contemptuous Readyness

(_**Hehe, howdy ya'll. Things are going good, I finished ALL my late homework, and had a lot of fun while I did it~ So tomorrow {10-12-11} I have my PSAT's and then I'm stress free and can work more on the chapter~**_

_**Kinda a boring chapter, but it gets us in the direction we need to go~ And I have to have a slightly calm chapter with all the drama we've had lately, eh?**_

_**Also, today I ate a worm. A live wiggling brown/pink earthworm.**_

_**Do you know you can feel them wiggling around inside of your stomach for half an hour after you swallow them whole? I did. That was the fourth one I've ever eaten.**_

_**They have a gross after taste~ bleh.**_

_**And sorry about my flub last chapter~ it was supposed to be 58 not 38 LOL. Anyways, so here is chapter 59! Enjoy! The next one should be about our newest temp character, the Japanese ambassador! Any name/gender suggestions?**_)

My protoform armor clacked together as I shivered violently. I was sitting on a chair in the showers, outside my room sat Jolt who had carried me here and was my guard for now, with the water running hotly over my battered body. The twins would have taken me but… having a literal three legged bot race doesn't sound fun when you don't have any extra legs to catch you if you fall. Things have slowly started to heal, my leg included seeing as it needed about three less wraps to keep the bare cables from leaking. But I can't really expect more then that, seeing as it's only been a day.

One day. I have two days left until the ambassador gets here, name and sex are still unknown to me, and I hope by then that I feel much better then I do now. My leg and other various temporarily patched wounds, however healed they may be, hurt like no other. Optimus tries to take my pain away but when it's a constant throb, literally skeleton deep, it proves to be incredibly stubborn in sticking around. Elita tries too, but it doesn't help any. It's hard to take away the feeling of missing half your lower leg, to be truthful to you.

Rocking my helm back, I let the spray wash over it, tickling my antenna and my audio receptors. I reached up with a hand, lathered in some armor cleansing soap, and ran it over my helm. I worked it gently in, rubbing my own antenna's to make sure they wouldn't jam up any time soon and so I could get out any possible grit in my joints and gears.

I let the water, still steamy and hot; wash the soapsuds away in long rivulets of pinkish gray bubbles that flowed down my head and protoform armor. I scratched at a speck of something dried on my head, near the base of my audio receptor. It washed away a moment later.

I was now as clean as I was gonna get. "Jolt?" I called. "You still there?"

"Yes." Jolt slipped inside, his feet having little trouble getting traction on the slick tile. "Are you ready to return to the medical bay?"

"Yeah." I nodded. Shifting my body, I made it easier on both of us for him to pick me up. Jolt didn't hesitate; he scooped me up gently, my silver armor standing out in a fair clash with the darker silver of his armor. "You know," I said, "I think that you would look good in a blue paint job."

He inclined his head at me as he walked out the door, stopping at the sink before hand to grab a big towel to hold to me. It was both for keeping water off the floor, and for keeping prying eyes off of me. Well, okay, the towel isn't much more then a cover for my pelvic area and the bottom of my chest. "You think so?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I think a nice dark blue, navy maybe, would look good on you."

Jolt passed me a half grin as he toted me down the hallway. "I might just do that."

I merely nodded at him in response and then just chilled out as I was ferried back to the med bay. I took the moment to take a peak at his hands. They were strange, claw like, but didn't look like they were metal. Reaching out with a finger, I poked it. Raising an eyebrow plate, I looked up at him. "Ceramic, really?" I asked as we exited the bath building finally and ended up outside on the tarmac.

He nodded. "Yes. It doesn't melt with Electricity like metals or rubbers would after a while."

I gave him a cheeky half grin. "I guess that's why you're called Jolt, isn't it?"

He snorted at me. "Hardly. However, why I am designated as I am is not particularly a subject I like to think about."

"What ever you say." I agreed.

When we strolled back into the med bay about a minute later, I was graced with the sight of my adopted family waiting for me next to the bed in the front room. Papa was closest to the bed, while Elita was a little bit further away, half turned from my sight and looked to be holding something. Jolt strolled over and dumped me unceremoniously onto the bed, albeit gently.

"Geeze, thanks Jolt." I commented dryly as I shifted myself and leaned over the side to pull up a blanket. "Because I _so_ wanted to be dropped on the bed like that." He merely shook his head at me and walked into the next room, where I could faintly hear the twins arguing with Ratchet vehemently about something. Turning my attention to my patents, I settled the blanket over my lower half and removed the damp towel. "Hi Papa, mom." I greeted.

Papa was the first to speak. "Good morning sweetspark." He said. He stooped and wrapped his arms around me in a gentle hug, also taking a moment and embracing me through the bond and letting me feel what his spark was feeling. "We came to see how you're doing this morning."

"I'm doing good." I answered, giving them both a loving squeeze over the bond. "A little achy, but nothing I haven't dealt with before." I motioned to Elita. "What's Mom hiding?"

"This." Elita turned and strode into my sight. In her arms, wrapped in a nice little blue and green blanket, was Leo. Leo was awake and burbling happily, his little light blue fists waving in the air. I flinched away slightly, images of my insanity flickering past due to the familiar sight of the sparkling. "We thought it would be a good time to hold your brother for the first time."

I shook my head. "I've held him before." I said. "When I delivered him." Oh bleh at the memories. "And when I gave him back to you." After I went a little bit insane.

They both sighed at me. "Those do not count." Papa rumbled to me softly. "Those were those situations where you had to. This is where you want to."

I shook my head. "I don't want to." I sighed. "Not fond of children, human or otherwise. I'm not _comfortable_ holding him." I said.

Elita gave me an impatient noise and feel over the bond. "He's your brother, there's a difference between him and any other sparkling. There is no logical reason for you not to hold him."

I huffed slightly. Yes there was. It hadn't been that long since I was leaning towards killing him, and while I no longer feel the pull, the memories of the images still remain. Probably will for a long time, haunting me, taunting me. "Look, Mom, Papa, it's not that easy to just forget the images my mind cooked up. The feelings are gone, yes, but that doesn't mean that the aftermath of what happened isn't plaguing my processor." I sighed. I took a moment to press my hand to my optics gently before letting it run over my helm. "Give me some time, more then less then a half a month. I need time to heal further, alright?"

I got some faint contemptuous feelings from Elita, but I got love and understanding from both. Optimus sighed. "Alright. We'll give you all the time you need, alright?"

I nodded at him, and gave him a bond hug as well as a physical one. "Yes Papa."

"Just let us know when your ready, and we'll be ready too." Elita agreed with a small sigh.

It was quiet for a moment, and then Optimus fixed me with a suddenly stern look. "Speaking of not being ready; do you want to tell me what I heard from Ratchet about you and the twins yesterday?"

My hand met my face with a light clang and I sighed. _Damn tattle tail._


	60. Fruity Suprises

(_**Heya, so not much is going on right now, things are going good though and I have a little bit of a twist planned for waaaaaaay later in the story, so far ahead that I actually don't know what chapter It's gonna be.**_

_**I'm slightly disappointed that I didn't get any name toss ups, so… I guess you'll all just have to deal with my choice, and the personality. I think it'll surprise you~ for those who are offended by the ambassador, then I'm sorry you feel so, but I'm not changing him. I have to have at least {there will most likely be more} one character who is like it is.**_

_**Affection to my brain twin/pack mate Zayren Heart, bee-roxs98, MeLikeCake, and many more~**_

_**Here is the next chapter~ Chapter 60, wooooooot~**_)

So it's safe to say I got my ass chewed for the whole 'twincident' as I've taken to calling it. Papa said that it was irresponsible of me, he said it with his stern but disappointed papa face, and then forbade me from sharing a _room_ with them while in the med bay. He said, quote unquote, "If you cannot behave for your health, then I will behave for you." And then he said I was now only allowed with them if Ratchet or Jolt were with me while in the med bay. Needless to say, I am quite lonesome now…

Bunch of bullshit if you ask me. Actually, if you ask the twins, they'll tell you the same thing. Along with some other added words of course.

Sam and Mikaela came in and visited with me yesterday. For most of the day, actually, they were with me. They informed me on everything that has happened since the battle, seeing as they had been here on a visit with Bumblebee if I remember correctly. Lots of injuries, but most of which were taken care of for the moment, but they said that most of the bots look like they went through hell. I believed them. I also told them of what it was like to lose your sanity, and of my little twincident the day prior. I got sad sounds and unneeded comforts, then I got giggles and shits reactions from them.

We, the three of us, played a round of poker with special giant cards that Mikaela had specially bought for us all to play. They were still small for my hands, but they worked just fine, and they were fairly large to the humans. Needless to say, Mikaela owned all, though I did manage to finagle one of my few winnings so that they would come up for Christmas, which was in about, oh, four months now if I'm correct. Halloween too, but that was another winning, which included a party for both events.

We also played a short game of BS, which Sam won surprisingly. I won the round of drinking free never-have-I-ever, and then I had to take a quick crash course nap, which I found the humans just took up residence in my neck joint like some fleshy human tumor and took a little nap of their own. Okay, they didn't nap so much as make out and dry hump each other like cracked out Chihuahuas.

Today is the day that the ambassador is coming, and I'm in my special room away from the twins, waiting for my visitor. I've been repaired as much as Ratchet could, which isn't much, and I've been given a pain killer so I don't get into a foul mood if the ambassador turns out to be an ass. My leg is still damaged badly; I can still see my main support struts, which is like my skeleton if you want to be specific. My cables are still lacerated in some places and are leaking badly enough to have bandages of their own, some spots of my body are still scarred and torn from armor previously being crushed into my body. Some of my minor armor burns are gone, but that's due to my own healing nanites.

Right now I'm lying in my little bed thing, a long white sheet draped over my lower half. In my hands is a data pad, which, by some strange stroke of luck, got Internet. I was currently surfing the web, pausing on a website called fanfiction dot net. I scrolled through, amused by some of the stories on there, none of which included transformers. But some of the Naruto ones were hilarious, not to mention the things labeled 'crack-fics'.

I shifted to another website, deciding to create a facebook for myself. I screwed with it, giving a kitten face for my picture, and calling myself 'Aurora Kittenalius Felionous Claws'. Then, when I got bored with hacking frontierville, giving myself all the latest shit, I went and hacked myself into WOW. I found it kind of… stupid. So I left WOW and went to go screw around on youtube.

I cracked up at some people biting the dust while swinging, or in a couple unfortunate cases I found that the swing broke. Their reactions were hilarious. I found a couple old one's I had seen when I was human, and then grossed myself out on the 'two girls one cup' video. I think I'll have to show the other bots this video later, just to see who loses their energon first…

During this time, my injured leg started to itch, and itch badly. It itched at the spots that were growing back. Ugh, it feels weird.

Ratchet came in a while later, after I had already bored myself to death on the data pad. "The ambassador will be here in approximately ten earth minutes." He informed me. "Are you ready?"

I sighed and shook my head negative. "Not particularly, but I'm about as ready as I'll ever get." I answered. I shifted, taking a moment to stretch my arm joints and my relatively uninjured leg. "Hey Ratchet, how's the repair on my armor going?"

"Slow." He sighed and positioned himself so he was leaning on the wall. "The parts that need replacing will have to be done when we get materials, and some of the pieces we're working on now have far to go before they'll even be ready. You really did a number on yourself." Ratchet mused.

Shaking my helm, I reached up and scratched gently at an antenna. "Blame the Decepticons. They seem to like bashing it in. Two layers of armor don't do slag against some of those brutes." I murmured. "Do you think that if we added another layer, I would get less damaged?"

"No." Ratchet let out a snort. "With you, I have no doubt that if it can be done, you will find a way to somehow wind up here even if we added _ten_ layers."

"Thanks for the encouragement." I commented dryly. "Any chance of a small trip outside for some fresh air before I have to see the big-wig?"

Ratchet let out a loud exhale. Then he gave me a shit eating half smirk that foretold death or dismemberment if I tried. "If you can walk outside on your own then yes, your free to do it."

I gave a long simmering sigh. "Alright fair enough." I gave a slight shift. "Hey, can you take a peak at my leg? It's starting to itch a bit."

Ratchet simply walked across the room to a tall cabinet kind of thing. He opened the doors, pulled out this weird barrel of something, and then closed the doors again. Walking to my side, he flipped up the sheet, opened the canister, and then spread a pale green goop over the edges of my wound. The itching subsided almost immediately, like it was washed away by some sticky, gooey, river.

I gave a relieved noise as Ratchet moved onto setting a wrap over the edges, holding the gooey stuff in place. "That," he said, "is because your metal protoform is trying to grow back and heal itself when it doesn't have the correct components and nutrition to do so." He moved again, and put the stuff away.

I nodded. "Alright." I let out a small grunt and sat myself up slowly. Reaching down and under the bed slightly, I made the top half angle up to where I could sit while leaning slightly back, but I was higher then before. Settling myself back comfortably, I flipped the cover back into place again, and then pulled it up slightly.

"The ambassador is here." Ratchet intoned suddenly. He walked out the door, calling back, "Get ready, I'll go fetch it." I'm as ready as I am gonna get. Still, I shifted and fiddled with my blanket, my door wings, slightly stationary, twitching and fiddling along with my antennas.

Taking a deep breath, I steeled my nerves, taking practice in my calm and collected military stance that I had used as a human. Folding my hands neatly in my lap, I waited for the Japanese ambassador to come inside with Ratchet…

I didn't have to wait long.

Ratchet came strolling in, with a slightly small bundle in his hands. He set that bundle on a rolling trolley thing, and then wheeled it next to my bed before he fled. In a way, Ratchet fled as if the hounds of hell were tickling his feet.

I looked at the ambassador. He, roughly five foot four, stood in a crisp black suit. The man was obviously Japanese due to coloration and how his body was built, with the slanted eyes and smaller frame. He looked, though, like he knew some American customs, because he held out his hand to shake.

As I shook it with my pinky finger, the man opened his mouth and made me jump by how his voice sounded. "Hello darling, you must be NightStrider! I am Nakajima Kureno, but here in America I suppose my name would be Kureno Nakajima." He slipped off his over coat to the suit, giving me a view of a very fruity puffy shirt covered in roses.

He was so _gay._

(_**Cliffie! Sorta, I know. I had trouble with this one though, so I'm just gonna post it and then let you all review, and work on the part where they actually talk and shit~ Don't be angry please~**_)


	61. Mister Nakajima

(_**Thank you all my wonderful reviewers and readers! I'm glad you all, or at least most of you, seem to approve of the ambassador~**_

_**Not a whole lot to say, thankies to all my buddies, and to let you all know that my position as a beta reader is open now, and you can take a peek at what I'll do for you via the info thingies.**_

_**And yes, its short, but that's how it's supposed to be. I've slightly noticed that my dialogue sucks when it comes to important matters. –Sigh- ah well. Been busy, and I wont be able to pop out a long ass chapter for a while yet. I work during these next couple weekends at a Halloween haunted house as a guide through the house.**_

_**Now onto the story, chapter 61!**_)

The small Japanese ambassador bowed low to me at the waist, and then straightened. I nodded at him. There was no way I could possibly bow like that, not now any ways. I couldn't stand; first off, so there was no way for me to do it. "Ah, yes, that's me." I nodded again. I motioned carefully with one hand, incase I could possibly scare him off. "You must be the ambassador for Japan, yes?"

"Ah yes, that I am." Kureno agreed. Small slanted brown eyes stared curiously up at me from under thin dark brows.

He spoke pretty good English for a native Japanese man. As a human, I'd met many native Japanese people, and very few of them talked like this man before me does. He speaks clearly, his accent there but not to over prominent. In other words, I can understand him and will have no need to try and interpret his gibberish. "I don't mean to offend," I started off in a cautious voice, "but your English speaking capability is more then I expected."

The man smiled at me, "Yours as well. I did not expect a robot to be built so efficiently, and so large, let alone the capacity to understand human speech."

I shook my head with a low rumble. He assumes we're man made then. All right, time to tap into my inner papa, the confusing spokesperson. "I can assure you, Mister Nakajima, that we are not man made. We have sparks, spark beats, our souls if you will, and we have the ability to function smoothly and have a singular thought process. We can make our own decisions." I held out a hand to offer him a ride. "Our bodies are warm, we have cables which act as veins. We are, essentially, like giant metal humans. Only Alien."

Kureno merely reached out and touched my hand, then his hand took a firm hold on my finger. "You're right, you are warm." He said in a slightly flippant tone. "But Aliens? Isn't that a little far-fetched, darling?"

I shrugged lightly. "It's about as far-fetched as saying I'm male, which I'm not. But it doesn't change that we are." I nodded. "Hop on my hand if you will."

Kureno propped a hand up on his hip, which was insanely creepy watching someone of the male species do. One of his hands still held onto my finger, and the other had dropped his coat to the tabletop long ago. "I would, darling, but you seem much smaller then those other nice robots and aren't you injured?"

"I am indeed." I agreed. "But, carrying you isn't much of a problem. Giant robot here, I don't have muscles to be strained." Giving a small laugh, I simply scooped Kureno up gently, leaving him so he was sitting in my palm with his legs dangling down. "I'm young actually, more or less a young adult in human comparison. Not old enough to be responsible for myself, not young enough to need a babysitter."

"Really," Kureno murmured, clutching my thumb tightly, peering down as I moved him slowly from the table. He gave a light whistle. "That's a long way down."

"I wont drop you, Mister Nakajima." Bringing him closer to my chassis, I brought my other hand up to secure him. Giving a long sigh, I ran my tongue over my lip plates. "Okay, so, getting down to business, was there anything that I can do for you to convince you to trade the materials for the technology?"

He shook his head. "Not really, I just wanted to meet someone who we're technically 'funding' you know?" Kureno was silent for a moment, a contemplating look on his face. "Can you show me your worst wound? Just so I can be sure your actually wounded and not just going to use the metals to build bombs or anything. I know that, from what I saw when I arrived, there was significant structural damage to your buildings and such, so there's half the reason."

I tightened my hold on him in one, and then I shifted and brought the other down to move the sheet. "Sure, but it's not pretty." When my leg was barred for all to see, the bandages and such around the healing metals, and everything, I saw his confusion. "Okay, to the human equivalent would be missing half of their calf and shin. You see that main rod there? That would be like my skeleton. Those pulsing cables are my veins." Speaking of which, they're leaking through the bandages again…

"And that blue stuff that's coating the bandages?"

"My blood." I answered simply. "It happens when the cables rupture."

Kureno looked absolutely like a child on Christmas morning. "This is all so absolutely fascinating!" he chirped. "Can you bleed out like a human?"

I nodded, my antenna wiggling back and forth. "Yeah, but we don't die like that. We go into a stasis lock, like a coma, until we are repaired and woken by a medic." I gently flipped the cover over my leg again.

Kureno turned around again and peeked up at my face. I arched an eyebrow plate at the look on his face. His eyes were flicking back and forth, slightly like a child with ADD, watching something over my helm. I made a click noise, much like the sounds I had made as a sparkling when I was trying to talk. His eyes moved to my face again, and he gave a nervous giggle. Yes, a giggle. Putting a finger on his chin, Kureno boldly asked, "May I touch them?" Oh… he's watching my antenna.

I raised him up. "Sure, be careful of the gears and armor, if your finger gets caught it might accidentally get removed."

"Of course." I was answered by a chirpy voice.

When he was level with my face, I tilted my head down so he could look at and most likely poke my antenna better. I was surprised when his fingers gently closed around my antenna. Careful I was, keeping them still, as he touched and stroked them. It felt so awkwardly good… A purr rumbled deep in my throat and chassis, rolling forward like a boulder down a hill. Mister Nakajima paused in his petting, peering down at my optics with apprehension.

"Oh no! I didn't hurt you did I?" He brought his hands down and planted them firmly on my cheek plates.

"No," I said, " you didn't. That was a purr you just heard."

"Like a giant metal cat then, are you?"

"In a way." I relented slightly. "I purr, but that's about it." Bringing my hand down, I let Mister Nakajima down onto the table.

"How adorable!" the man cooed.

I shifted slightly. "Soo… anything else I can do for you?"

Mister Nakajima nodded. "Yes." Oh god, what now? "Use the metals my country is going to provide and get better, you hear me? I'll see if I can work it out with your leader for you to meet with our countries leader, and maybe the larger business companies who will be funding you."

A grin stretched up the side of my face, broad and wide. "You mean it?"

Kureno stooped and snagged his jacket, folding it over one arm like a butler from old movies carried towels. "Indeed! I find you much to pleasant of an… Autobot?" at my nod he continued, "Much to pleasant of an Autobot to remain in such a state. Of course, the other injured and beat up bots can get fixed up too. Maybe I'll see if I can send some paint too, because those little green and rust colored ones could use a repaint." He thrummed slightly. "Their colors clash horribly. Yours, from what I saw on your helm, are creative, and flatter you. But, I think a nice, bright pink would be lovely, don't you agree?"

I blinked owlishly at him. Chatter box much? "Nah, pink isn't my color. I could rock a baby blue though." I could indeed… but do I want too? Hmm… I'll talk to the twins about it; see if they want to do a little bodywork on me.

"Baby blue will do just fine!" Kureno chirped. Slipping his phone, a small Nokea, from his pocket, Kureno checked the time. "Oh," string of random Japanese words that I neither know nor understand, "I need to depart, but I'll see you again!"

"Alright, have a good day Mister Nakajima." I nodded.

He waved a hand at me, "For you, darling, it's Kureno." He chirped again. Then he turned and clapped his hands slightly. "Oh big and yellow Autobot, I need to leave so I can get your materials sorted out! Where are you? I don't bite, I promise!"

I shook my head with a smirk. Okay, it's official. Severely feminine Japanese men are hilarious.


	62. Lock Down

(_**IMPORTANT, PLEASE READ:**_

_**Okay, I'm really sorry that I haven't updated in so long, but school and the fact that my grandmother is forcing me to work at a haunted house has made it so I have, literally, no time left for myself to do any writing, barely any sleeping ether. The only reason I'm writing this chapter now is because I have about one hour before I have to go back.**_

_**Yes, I apologize that this chapter is short, but it also lets me get on with the story. I admit, I've had a bit of writer's block for this chapter, so I'm doing something easy. Sorry if it doesn't meet expectations … Okay, it's kind of filler until I can sit down and actually have time/energy to write another one.**_

_**So please, I'm still here, but you wont receive many updated until after Halloween… Too much stress before the day, you know?**_

_**So enjoy, or not, it's all up to you.**_)

You know what? Being in a stasis lock sucks. It really, really does. Why am I in a stasis lock? Well, Ratchet put me here. He didn't want me awake for fixing my injuries, because after Mister Nakajima left, I found myself worsening in condition wise. Both Sideswipe and me got 'infections' of some type in our legs, where the metal was healing and stuff. I got to see what my leg looked like before I was practically dropped into a stasis lock. It looked gross, and least to say, that metal can be inflamed and pretty much look like it could have been puffed up with pus.

Stasis lock is horrible to be truthful. It kind of panics me at times, because all I can see is empty darkness, an infinite black, like when I had been drug down into the dark recesses of my mind by the insanity.

So here I am. Shoved into a stasis lock. It sucks. I have no Internet, no books, and no twins to talk to. Just the bonds with my family keep me grounded. They keep me from feeling like I'm floating away on a current of sleepy boredom. They send me love and assurance, though Leo only sends whatever he's feeling at the time. Optimus and Elita always pour their love at me, sending me occasional thoughts, or once I felt irritation from Optimus. He was quite irritated at Galloway. Yes, he's back, but only for a bit. He's going to be replaced soon.

Usually Leo is never bored, he's always with someone and is usually feeling contentment, loved, playful, or on the very rare occasion, irritated. Leo, I've discovered through the bond, does not like Ratchet. Leo always feels irritated, and usually around that time I've been getting flashes of Ratchet, ether his arms, his face, occasionally his chest. I guess that's his way of saying he doesn't like the doctor.

Leo…

Now that I think about it, I'm probably ready to hold my brother. While it was his fault I got my family taken away, it wasn't his fault that I lost my mind… and did those things to the Decepticons… it wasn't truly his fault that I almost killed him…

But… it still makes me cringe to think about holding him…

I'll give it time. In time I can only hope to do be able to hold him without the thoughts that the voice gave me popping up as a reminder…

As if feeling my sudden melancholy, Leo sent me a scolding feeling and then flooded my mind with the picture of what he thought him sitting on my lap. Then another, me and him playing a game of cards, UNO it looked like. Then I got the image of him and I filling a big balloon full of shit and throwing it at Ratchet.

'_That is not nice, Leo._' I sent him amusement anyways, '_He's my sometimes-teacher, you know. He's also fixing me so I can get better._'

Leo sent me his acknowledgement. He understood what I was saying. Cool, so I guess sparklings are smart like what Ratchet said. Leo gave me a slight aggravated feeling I'm assuming because I thought he wasn't smart.

'_Cant blame me, I didn't know._' He simply launched me acceptance.

Shifting my focus to my papa, I sent him my curiosity at what he was doing. Papa opened the bond further, letting me see what he was seeing.

First off, it's really weird to be looking down at things from my papa's height. Second, Galloway was standing on one of the human raised platform things, yelling at Optimus about something. He didn't let me hear, so that gave me the feeling that Galloway was saying some rather distasteful things that would make me wonder if he kissed his mama with that mouth. Well, I suppose I'm one to talk, profanity is one of the languages I speak quite fluently. So is sarcasm, sometimes bitch, and irony. Papa sent me feelings of confirmation, letting me know that, yes; Galloway was being a dick and running his mouth.

'_Your bigger then him, remind him you can squish him._' I sent to him.

Optimus let a chuckle travel over our bond. '_That's not nice and you know it._'

'_You love me for my quirks anyways._' I responded.

Love was thrust at me, giving me a warm feeling. '_Indeed I do._'

I was quiet for a moment. '_Hey Papa, how much more do you think I'll grow?_'

I felt him pondering. For a while, I don't know how long since my sense of time is shot to shit for now, he was silent. Then Optimus spoke. '_Sweetspark, you might end up tall, you might end up short, but you'll still be you._'

'_You didn't answer my question though._'

'_You'll probably be close to Sunstreaker and Sideswipes height at least. I say you will probably be around, oh, twenty feet. Taller then the twins, I do believe._'

We talked for a little while longer, again I don't know how long, before he said to me, '_Sweet spark, I believe that you need to rest now. Ratchet says that you're all fixed up, but that you need to rest your mind. He's going to be slipping you out of stasis and into recharge.'_

'_Alright Papa.' _I gave a slight mental sigh._ 'Be safe, what ever your doing.'_

Papa squeezed my spark with his bond, our version of a hug. Then I settled down to wait, until I slipped into recharge.


	63. High Flying Sight

(_**Greetings, greeting, and happy holidays, early or not, to all~ So, yes this is the next chapter of GIBTH. The story sure has come a long way, hasn't it? Well its not about to end. Not for a long while anyways…**_

_**I will let you know now, that after these next couple of chapters is going to be a time skip. Or, at least the next couple of chapters anyways. Things are going to be interesting~ or at least I hope. This chapter actually is a time skip of about a couple days.**_

_**So, thanks to everyone who still bothers to review and let me know what they think of my writing~**_

_**Now I have a question for anyone who can answer. Who is the little robot in DOTM that lives with Sam, Carly, and Wheelie?**_

_**Also, speaking of Carly, what do you all think I should do? Do I remove Mikaela from the picture and bring in the blond bomb, or do I oust Carly in favor for the brunet beauty? For those who need it simpler, Mikaela or Carly for Sam?**_

_**Oh, and no offence to the short mention of Tourretes syndrome. I know a couple of people who have it and always are twitching and swearing enough to make a sailor blush. They can't stop how ever much they try. But, they're still lovable.**_

_**And another thing, when I have a {…} by itself, then that means a page break, because my computer is retarded and doesn't know how to do that.**_)

"Shit!" I groan as the plane bounces harshly in a bout of turbulence that our pilot _always _seems to hit.

That evil chipper voice came through the announcement speakers. "Sorry about that ladies and gentlemen! I got a little carried away listening to the radio, and ran into that patch of wonky winds!"

God damn you Skippy. Don't you know you're supposed to pay attention when you fly? How the hell did he pass flight school? Wait… How the hell does he even get a radio signal this high in the air? You know what? This is Skippy we're talking about. If he can fly like shit and manage not to crash us, then I'm sure almost anything is possible with him. Its better not to question the psychotic powers of a crazy bat-shit man.

I'm currently shoved into one of the huge cargo planes, strapped down to a bed, which in itself is both braced and welded to the wall of the plane, in my robot form. A light blue blanket is draped over me, both to keep my protoform warmer then it would be without the blanket, and to keep the 'prying eyes' of the twins from seeing me 'indecent' if I were to quote my father. We're on our way to our new base in Washington DC.

Papa is currently knelt next to me, kept in place only by the sheer mass of his weight and how he's positioned himself. His hand was clasped over mine, gently petting the soft protoform armor there. The red and blue flame covered armor stood out as a stark contrast to my silver colored hand.

"Watch your language." Optimus scolded.

I squinted up at him. "Sorry, cant, it's one of the few languages I speak other then English." I cracked a half grin at him, to let him know I was half joking half serious.

Optimus shook his head at me in a half amused dismay. We'd been ever this several times during the flight. We also learned that when a freshly rebuilt, or at least half rebuilt, leg is not ready for strenuous activity, it can cause pain that's bad enough to make me swear like a Tourretes kid on crack. But, that was learned about an hour or so after I woke up from my little 'coma'. It doesn't hurt as bad now.

"Sweetspark, I don't think you could change even if you were reprogrammed." With a hand running affectionately over my helm, he settled down so he was resting on his aft next to the bed.

"Probably." I chirp.

"Hey!" the irate sound of Sunstreaker came from across the cargo hold. "Stop that you atrociously cruel medic!"

Papa shifted so I could see the twins strapped down on separate beds, and Ratchet fussing with something on Sunstreaker's newly rebuilt leg. My optics focused on the small needle in Ratchet's hand, filled with a familiar glowing substance. "If you would hold still and stop harassing the humans then I wouldn't have to sedate you." Ratchet gave an angry huff. "Even your brother is behaving."

"Duh Doc-bot, but that's because he's passed out cold!" Sunstreaker gave a long low whine. "It's so hard to not growl at them when they pass! They jump and freak out so easily that its fun!"

Ratchet, having from what it looks like finished administering the sleeping drug, gave Sunstreaker a rough pat on his restrained arm. "Maybe you'll learn to respect our allies." Heaving a sigh, the big yellow mech stood and stretched as Sunstreaker gave a transformers version of a yawn. "One can only hope though." He turned and walked off towards Chromia, who was sitting on a pile of some most likely useless cable to keep it from sliding around. I watched him settle in front of her and start talking to her, about what exactly, I don't know.

I turning my attention to the ceiling of the plane, I stifled a long sigh. In our plane there is Sideswipe, Sunstreaker, my Papa, Ratchet, Chromia, and Jolt. In another plane that is just as large as this one we're in now, has Elita and Arcee, the small and annoying twins, Ironhide, and Leo. Jazz, Mirage, Wheeljack, and Prowl make up the other occupants in yet another giant plane.

Skippy led the plane through another round of what ever winds make turbulence. It jostled me a bit, and shook Optimus enough that he slid a little bit. Optimus blinked, slightly flabbergasted. "Now you see why I curse at our pilot." I commented matter-of-factly.

Papa let out an amused rumble. "I still do not commend such language, however true it may be." Sliding a bit further up, from where he had slid in the turbulence, Papa settled himself at the front of my bed, where I could still see him and he could see me.

I shook my helm and flicked my antenna, making them tap Optimus's hand as it ran over my helm again. "What ever you say papa… Hey, do you wana know something?"

"Hmm?" He trilled at me.

"You're going to fall over when Skippy tries to land."

Papa squinted at me and smiled, the plates in his face overlapping in the usual way they did. "And how do you know this?"

Wiggling my fingers and eyebrow platings, I gave him a mischievous grin. "I am a ninja! Nah, not really. Skippy just has the knack to make anyone fall down."

…

Some time later, mid flight I do believe, I must have fallen asleep because I was gently tapped awake by Chromia. My internal clock told me that it was roughly three thirty in the morning, and that I should not be waking up this early.

Peeling my optics open, I let a small squeak leave my throat as I ended up yawning. Blinking tiredly, I caught sight of the blue motorcycle femme was standing where Optimus had been sitting. Optimus, my bond and eyes told me, was sitting over by the wall, attached to it so he wouldn't move. He was fast asleep, snoring lightly and letting out some slightly raunchy exhaust-farts if jolts scrunched sleeping face is anything to go by. Blinking again at the blue femme before me, I questioned groggily, "Yes, how can I help you?"

"Sorry to wake you, but I need to ask you something." Chromia shifted, seemingly uncomfortable with what she was going to ask me. All right… it cant be that bad, can it?

"Alright, shoot. I'm all ears." Warily, I added, "Nothing life-threatening, right?"

A shake to the helm in a negative was my response. "Not at all. Now, I suppose I'll be blunt, and I wont 'dodge around the bush' so to speak, so I'll just come out and say it." Okay, it can't be that bad. Maybe she simply needs a little advice or something.

Chromia took a deep inhalation and then sighed at me. "All right, I would like for you to be my 'mid-wife' so to speak."

Wait, what?

My nose plates scrunched slightly. "Your mid-wife." That would have to mean she was… "You're carrying?"

Chromia's hand floated gently to her abdomen in an expression of placidness I had only ever seen her handle Leo with. A smile lit up her faceplates. "Yeah." She said softly. "Ratchet confirmed it a little while ago. Ironhide doesn't even know. So will you?"

I gave a slightly uncomfortable noise. "I'm not qualified to do such a," disgusting, gross, nauseating, mentally scaring, and invasive, "_delicate_ procedure. Ratchet is though."

Chromia shook her helm at me. Focusing her optics on mine, she spoke, "You delivered your brother, so that's good enough for me."

"I didn't have a choice! If Ratchet had been there, then I would have shoved the duty onto his servos. If I were good at instructing, then I would have had Jolt do it!" I protested. Looking to play sparkling catcher between what could be considered my aunts legs isn't on my to do list, ever. But then and again, delivering my brother hadn't been on my list ether, but it happened anyways.

"I would rather you do it then Ratchet. Ratchet may be a medic, but he's still a mech."

Oh. I think I get it. She's like human women; they don't want a male gynecologist, because he may try and cop a feel. I was like that too, but Ratchet hardly counts like that. Well, maybe to me, but I guess everyone has their own opinions in the matter at hand.

Okay… I'm an adult, I can handle this. I can do this! I hope…

Sighing deeply through my nose, I relented. "Alright, alright. But, try and let me know before hand if you feel anything. I would rather not pull what I had to do with my mother. That was both messy and gross. I'd rather deliver in the med bay, where it makes me more comfortable."

"And I'd rather deliver in my room." She responded in kind. "It would make me more comfortable."

If I could have thrown my hands up in frustration/defeat, I would have. "Fine, slaggit, fine! We'll do it wherever the frag you want, but I'll only do the delivery. I don't know how to check anything else, like how healthy it is or anything like that."

Chromia's spare hand, the one that wasn't touching her abdomen, popped up and rubbed my helm. "You're a good kid, kiddo. Can't wait to work with you."

Yeah, yeah. I don't look forward to another purging of my tanks, but what the hell can I do when I'm the only female medic, part time or not, and the carrying femme is a bit uncomfortable with a mech other then Ironhide between her legs? Not much, that's about it. But I guess I'll have to do what I have to do.

My antenna scratched gently at her fingers, getting another grin on her face. "I'm only good when I want to be." I responded. Shifting in my bindings, I found another comfortable spot and settled down. "Go rest," I flicked my head towards the pile of cable where she had been relaxing, "It'll do you good to get some sleep."

Shaking her head at me, she turned to go back to the pile, "Good night then, Nightstrider."

Closing my optics, I used my metal teeth to grab the blanket, which had slid down, and pull it up further. Snuggling down, I let myself drift back to sleep. Nice, comfortable, no thinking sleep…


	64. Whole New Game

(_**Howdy everyone~ so I don't know if its Halloween for wherever everyone is, but happy Halloween! Special shout out to **__**bee-roxs98, and my brain twin Zayren Heart! To Bee-Roxs98, I thank you for trusting me to help you with your story, and for being a good fellow Authoress! To Zayren, I know I haven't heard from you lately, but you're always in my thoughts :D and you were the answer to my math question though I got weird looks from my teacher!**_

_**I'm glad to say that Carly got ousted in the vote, so we keep Mikaela! Yay! But I've been thinking, and I was thinking that since we don't really see them much that Mikaela and Sam will indeed break up, but Mikaela comes to work for NEST as Ratchets apprentice, the dark of the moon plot continues as is, but with a dark and slightly ghastly twist. What do you all think about that?**_

_**Anyways, this part of the story is getting increasingly harder to write, because it's at a boring lull. I'm sure you readers agree, yes? So after this chapter, it'll be a time skip. Into a whole new 'Arc' I suppose.**_

_**Would you all like me to do a little {late} Halloween interlude? Like of her first robot Halloween, which I did a brief explanation in chapter 21. Or maybe I could do a totally different one, where she's little, like her original size of 3 feet all, and she gets taken trick-or-treating with Sam and Mikaela! Oohhh the ideas!**_

_**Lemme know via some reviews please! Oh, also, we get to meet a character that we've heard but never seen before! Guess who?**_)

I jolted awake with a groan as the plane landed with a jerky motion. My optics remained closed for a moment, while my audio receptors picked up the various sounds of things, be it Autobots or humans I don't know, bumping around. The telltale signs, and noises, of my adopted father standing up made me peal my optics open with a faint clicking noise. I was met with the sight of the plane ceiling. My systems started up sluggishly, a low humming slowly starting to emit from within me.

I gave a groan as my helm banged up and down once more as the plane jerked. "God damn it, why can't he ever land smoothly?"

"It's for the same reason you cannot stop with the foul language, sweetspark." The large bulk of my papa filled my sights, the red and blue of his armor making me squint. "Good morning sweetspark. I heard you got a job last night." Amusement glittered in his optics.

I gave an unintelligent noise for a response. Then I sighed. "Yeah. Not exactly thrilled about it ether. How did you know?"

"Comm. Links, they work wonders for silent communication." Papa knelt, his large metal palm closing over my helm and rubbing my antenna and audio receptors. He chuckled. "Pray tell, why is that? The birth of a new life is a wonderful thing; a beautiful event."

I furrowed my eyebrow plates. "For you, you're not the one who has to look and deliver the little things." I felt the plane come to a stop with the bouncing and just begin to lose speed by driving around. "Hey, can you un-strap me? I'm getting kinks in my joints from being still so long."

Optimus's hands moved fairly quickly for a mech his size as he started undoing the complex strapping in which entrapped me. "Of course."

It didn't take him long to get them undone, but by the time he was done with the ones around my legs, I had watched Ratchet fly through the one's that held both of the twins. When they were free, they had sat up and stretched their limbs. Sunstreaker began a routine check of his paint, to make sure there were no scratches, and Sideswipe waved at me. I had waved back too, with my now free hand.

Papa helped me sit up and covered me the best he could with my blanket, and then he too stood and stretched his limbs. Ratchet, ever the snappy grump, called, "Prime! When these doors open, I'm enlisting you to carry these two idiots to my corner of the hanger since the med bay itself isn't ready yet." I didn't know that.

Papa sighed. "Alright Ratchet. Who is going to carry Nightstrider?"

Chromia piped in, "I'll have Ironhide take her once the door opens." Angling my head towards her, I watched her stretch her limbs before separating her uni-leg into two legs. Strolling towards me, she waved a hand dismissively, "I need her to be there when I tell him anyways. Oh, and try to act surprised when he comes to gloat." Ah yes, it would hurt his pride if he weren't the 'first' besides the medics to know.

"That works for me." Ratchet responded. He busied himself checking the twin's legs, much to their annoyance.

When Chromia reached me, I flipped my legs to the side so they were hanging off the bed. Taking a seat next to me, she cast me a half grin. I arched an eyebrow plating at her. "What do you need me here for?"

"To smack him in the face if he faints." Chuckling, the image popped into my head. I could see myself smacking Ironhide, this big black behemoth of a mech, in the face and him waking up to ask if it was true. Our amused chuckled were stalled as the plane jerked to a halt; causing us to almost fall off the bed.

We all watched the door as it was lowered slowly, ever so slowly, and sluggishly let in the bright morning sunlight. "Ah sunlight, how I have missed you so!" I chirped.

"Hey Princess," Sideswipe called, making me focus my attention onto him. "I heard you got a job!" He grinned at me.

"Oh shut up Sideswipe!" I called good-naturedly. Back when Leo was born, and I had run off to the showers, they had seen me expel the energon in my tanks, and at the time I hadn't knew they'd followed me. They had confronted me about it shortly after I started staying with them.

Sunstreaker swung his arm over and smacked his brother lightly. "Be nice, Sideswipe." He warned half playfully. "She isn't over here to put you in your place, but I can if she gives me the go ahead." He sent a glance my way, around Optimus's waist.

I gave him a wink. He smirked. His fist flew a little harder into his brother's arm. Sideswipe retaliated, started a small smacking war that was slightly amusing. "Boys, behave please!" I called.

Sideswipe paused, and gave me a brief half bow. "Of course, anything for you Princess."

"Ditto." Sunstreaker added. Sideswipe bumped Sunstreaker with his leg with a smirk. Oh gosh. Childish much? The door hit the ground with a thunk. I turned my optics over to see a man standing in the doorway, and they automatically focused so I could take in the details of the man.

The man had to be in his late twenties, or early thirties, and standing at roughly six foot five. He stood with one hand's thumbs looped in the belt loops of the dark blue denim jeans he was wearing. Shiny black combat boots covered his feet, and a neon yellow t-shirt with the N.E.S.T logo on it covered the top half of what was most likely a well toned body. His face was not quite manly, but not quite feminine, and the man had a pipe sticking out of his mouth. He was smiling.

A comical 'popeye the sailor' hat topped a mop of reddish brown hair that was shorter in the back and longer in the front. Loose curls hung down over his forehead and framed eyes, which looked to be a warm chocolate, or maybe some type of dark hazel. His hand came up and waved at us.

The familiar voice that usually plagued us during flights chirped cheerfully at us. "I thought I would be the first one to welcome you to your new home!" Skippy chirped. "Well, now that I've done that, it's time for ol' Skippy to hit the hay. While all ya'll Autobots got to snooze through the nice flight, I didn't have a co-pilot with me so I was awake the whole ride!" He turned on his heels with a wave, "Tootles!" I blinked slowly. What the hell? That's what Skippy looks like? Not really what I expected, you know?

I turned my head just in time to see Papa scoop my twins up, one under each arm football style. Sunstreaker protested loudly, but other then that he didn't do anything other then hang limply in place. Sideswipe wiggled a bit, but he too settled down for the wait. Papa winked at me and then strolled down the plane, followed by Jolt and Ratchet.

Reaching over, I tapped Chromia on the leg. "Hey, do you wana go fetch your mech?"

"Nah." She drawled. "He'll come here shortly; I comm. Linked him."

"Sneaky." I, too, drawled. Leaning back briefly, I brought my legs up and crossed them pretzel style. Running my hands lightly across the almost fully healed metal of my leg, I traced the thick and ropy welds that would act as scars until my nanites took care of them. Soon I would be able to walk on my own, and then I'm back in my own room! Wait…

"Hey Chromia, what ever happened to that Decepticon that we had in the brig?"

She gave a happy grunt. "Currently he is, as the humans say, hogtied. And in a stasis lock, for extra measure. He's with Prowl, but by now he's probably been toted to the new brig."

I hummed. "New brig, eh? And the med bay isn't even finished yet?"

"No." she sighed. "Prowl made sure that it was the first thing he did when working with the humans, was to make the brig first." Giving a grumpy noise, she settled lower in a slouch, one hand rubbing lovingly at her stomach plattings and the other one drummed a tuneless rhythm on her knee. "I don't know why the brig would be done first… the con isn't going anywhere in a stasis lock."

I shrugged. "Prowl's the Po-Po. No one understands the Po-Po accept the Po-Po himself."

…

Ironhide arrived not much later, with the excuse that he had to drag the con to the brig. I believed him, but Chromia flicked him shit for it. Eh, marital spats, what can you do? Not much, that's least to say. But… it was more like flirting, or dare I say… foreplay.

I scooted over, all the way to the edge of the bed, and patted the space between. "Alright Ironhide, enough with the PDA. I don't need these images in my innocent mind, all right? Now take a seat, you're gonna need it."

He gave me a growl, but plopped his large ass down anyways. Settling down like a beached whale, he exhaled loudly. "Alright, I know you need me to take you to Ratchet's corner, but why am I sitting here?"

Chromia patted his leg, and when he drew his gaze to her, she locked optics with him. "I have something serious to tell you. Something that will affect our future." He merely arched an eyebrow plating. "I'm carrying."

His processor went 'pop pop fizz fizz' and then his optics went dark for a moment as he slumped. Rolling my optics, I reached over and simultaneously slapped him in the face and poked him in the ribs. He jumped, and onlined.

Turning to her, while sliding off the bed so he was crouching in front of her. "Your serious? No jokes? No practical 'hahaha, lets fool the weapons specialist'?"

I shook my head. "Nope, Ironhide, your gonna be a papa. And I'm gonna be your doctor for the delivery." Yay…

His face was only describable as one of pure joy and awe. Then, with a sudden urgency, Ironhide scooped up Chromia and lip locked her. Spinning her slightly, he pressed a hand gently to her belly, just where the sparkling gestational chamber would be.

Slapping a hand over my optics with a groan, I sighed. "Hey! I call PDA police! Don't make me call the Po-Po!"

"Shush sparkling," Ironhide grinned, shifting his sparkmate to one arm. He scooped me up hastily, football style like my father had done to Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, and then strolled down and out of the plane. "Now, I'll get you to Ratchet, then me and 'Mia will go take our 'PDA' to somewhere not so public."

I opened my optics to the sight of our new home, and a whole new game in the rodeo that is our lives. "You know," I drawled, my optics fixated on the rapidly approaching building which would house us well through the third movie. "I find it hard to care at the moment whether or not you mentally scar me."

"Welcome home kiddo." They laughed.


	65. Special Halloween Interlude

(_**READ THIS SO YOU KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON!**_

_**Okay, this is kinda off topic, but I don't know if anyone really actually reads these, with the exception of the people who vote on what I put up {IE, the Mikaela-vs-Carly thing}, so I have to say this. Those who don't read the authors note should take a short moment to do so. It doesn't really take that long, and it will most likely explain anything that your confused about. But I disgress, its your choice if you do, not mine.**_

_**Anyways~**_

_**So I got a couple Okays from some of my closest buddies, you'll know who you are, so I'm gonna go ahead and write up a nice and most likely shortish Halloween interlude~ Enjoy~**_

_**Also, this is not related at all to the main story line of GIBTH, so this is essentially is a back track to the days when NightStrider was three foot something tall. Happy VERY late Halloween!**_

_**Go read the story Alls Fair In Love And War by Linjay. It's a good story, though just starting out. Anyway, tootles and enjoy the chapter I worked so hard and late into the night for all my dearly loved readers!**_)

It was dark outside; dark like the endless abyss of space swallowed up the earth's precious sun. The stars shone lightly in the sinister blackness of the sky, and the moon hung low glowing with an orange-white radiance. The trees were blowing in a cold light wind, sending some orange, yellow, and brown leaves scurrying across the ground. Jack-o-lanterns flickered dully on the decks of peoples houses, tucked strategically between scary decorations meant to be horrifyingly creepy and fun. Children scurried from house to house in the streets of Tranquility, dressed in a variety of costumes. Vampires, mummies, witches, princes and princesses, little itty bitty baby cows, vegetables, super heroes; the whole shin-dig.

It was October thirty first, the day where spooks and monsters run amok. The day when candy is passed out freely, no worries of cavities or becoming the fat kid. Halloween. The night of frights galore, and for people young and old to dress up and stalk the night. Truly the only night of the year where it _is _acceptable to take candy from strangers; even expected actually. Candy hording houses beware; the teenagers are out on the prowl with the eggs and toilet paper galore.

Mikaela walked on the right of me, one hand holding one of mine to keep me up, and her other holding her trick-or-treat bag. She was dressed as a succubus. Yes, succubus; as in the type of demon that supposedly was a sex mongrel who would suck the souls of the men she slept with. Mikaela wore leather, and large bat wings, which believe it or not stretched out to eight feet across.

Sam held my other hand awkwardly, his being clad in a rubber monster glove. The hand he held was clenched around my little trick-or-treat black cauldron bucket. He was dressed as a werewolf. Sam was a very, very not gruesome looking werewolf at that. He wore one of the cheap werewolf costumes that look about as real as those little green alien costumes.

Lennox and Epps were behind us, walking with Sarah and Annabelle. Sarah was dressed as one of those old time women from the old western movies, and Annabelle was dressed like a little cowgirl, complete with little western hat, boots, shit, and pants. Her stuff was insulated, complementary of Sarah's sewing skills. Lennox and Epps, funny guys they were, are in a two-man black and white Clydesdale horse costume; with Will being the front and Epps being the ass. Sarah was keeping Annabelle upright as she rode on her 'horse'.

I went as myself, a baby robot. The only reason I could go, was because I am the size that I am, and do indeed look like a little kid robot. That, and its dark enough that even if someone has a porch light on they cannot tell what I am. I had already gotten many adorable coos from some of the houses we had trick-or-treated, Annabelle had as well.

Sam and Mikaela are having fun, despite having to tote me around with them. Sam, ever easily embarrassed, was always flushing when someone assumes that I was his and Mikaela's child. Mikaela however, thought it was slightly funny though she too would flush a little. Me, well I thought it was kind of annoying. Not much I could do, though.

Optimus, Ratchet, Ironhide, and Bumblebee are driving around the neighborhoods that we've been visiting. They're keeping an eye on us, babysitting for the most part. Optimus doesn't like to keep me too far away from them incase something should happen.

Even a couple of the bots were dressed up; Sam had stuck magnetic bee wings onto the top of Bumblebee's hood, ones that would flap and make a light buzzing noise when Bumblebee would drive. Ironhide had big red demon horns on the front of his hood, and a little red devil tail streaming from his tailgate. Ratchet was too much of a grouch to dress up. Optimus had little cardboard turbo boosters complete with paper flames streaming, and they were attached to his doors. Adorning the top of Optimus's cab were two angled back horns. He was the 'speed demon' for tonight.

My candy bucket, which will be split between the teens of whom took me because I cannot eat it anymore, is heavy, full almost to the top now. This is going to be our last house for the night, because it's getting late, around twelve thirty, and for Sam and Mikaela it's a school night. Annabelle is having trouble keeping her eyes open, so Sarah is ready to go home. Will and Epps were ready long ago, because Epps is tired of staring at Will's ass, and Will is tired of Epps staring. My own eyes feel heavy, but that's because I've don't a lot of walking tonight. We hit half of the town, so technically so many neighborhoods that I cannot remember, and we started at six-o-clock. We've been trick-or-treating for six and a half hours.

That's a lot of candy… and walking.

Stomping up the steps to another house, we huddled in front of the door. Mikaela reached out to ring the bell. The bell was rigged I'm guessing, because it started playing the theme song to the movie Halloween.

The door opened, and we called out, "Trick-or-treat!"

An older woman answered the door, her gray hair decorated with lizards and spiders of all types. She wore a witches robe, adorned with spiders and their webbing at the sleeves. "Hello!" She chirped. Leaning to the left, she brought out candy. "I see you children have been busy! Please, take a handful, not many kids stop by here."

"Indeed we have, Ma'am." Lennox commented from within his horse suit.

The ladies eyes wandered to Annabelle and then to me. "I'm surprised the little one's are still awake." Her graying eyebrows arched. She glanced at my hands being held in-between the two teenagers. "I sincerely hope that you aren't the parents." She said to Sam and Mikaela. "Surely you are too young!"

Sam sputtered and flushed. "Not her parents! She's our friends kid, he's in the military and was too busy today to come out so he asked us." That was the general lie for the evening. It worked, for the most part. There were a few skeptical people, but weren't there always people like that?

"Her father works with my husband." Sarah chimed. She scooped up Annabelle off of Epps and Will and toted her forward to load up her tiny pumpkin. "We're all friends here, usually that's how it works when you're a military wife. Your army husbands friends become your friends." She drawled.

"I wouldn't know," The elder lady responded sweetly. "My husband wasn't in the military. He works at a mill down town." Bending down slowly, she smiled at me. "Hello sweetie, what's your name?"

"Amelia." I chimed quietly. Sam and Mikaela had a vote to see what my false name would be. The choices had been, Amelia, Amy for short, Lucilia, Darhla, Mary-Jo was Epps's input, and Andy was from Will. Amelia won, least to say.

The old women cooed at me. "Amelia, what a beautiful name." If only you knew. "Would you like some candy?" She offered the bowel to me.

I steadied myself and reached forward slowly with a hand I removed from Mikaela's grasp. "Yes please." Manners, manners. The lady let me take a handful and then withdrew the bowel.

"Such wonderful manners." She chirped. To Sam, she addressed, "How old is she?"

"Five and a half." That was the age they guessed I looked like.

The old lady nearly crooned. "Such a young age! She'll grow into a fine woman if she keeps her manners like that. Now how about this gorgeous little thing? How old is she?"

Sarah chortled. "Annabelle is a year and a half. Quite the little handful as well."

I let out a 'yawn' to emphasize that we should move on. The old lady seemed to get the picture, because she smiled at me. "Someone's getting tired!" way to point out the not so obvious. "Well, you kids go ahead and go, I'll see you all next year!" She turned and went into the house with a wave.

The whole lot of us left the deck, me holding onto Mikaela's hand again, and Annabelle riding once more on Lennox and Epps. Giving a small huff, I shivered slightly in the ever-dropping temperature of the air.

"Cold." I stated. "Very cold."

Mikaela gave me a knowing rub on the hand with her thumb. "I know what you mean." Of course, she was technically in less then I was. However, she wasn't made of cold conducting metal ether. "Hey Sam?"

"Mmm?"

"Do you have your cell phone on you?"

I looked over to Sam as he moved his candy back up to his wrist and them patted down his pockets. He frowned. "No. I think I left it at home. Why?"

Mikaela sighed. "I was going to call Bumblebee and see if he'd let the others know we're done and are ready to head home."

Lennox made a noise inside his suit. We all stopped and turned to see the front bulging and shifting awkwardly. "I have my phone on me! But I can't reach it." Sarah wisely scooped Annabelle off. "Epps! You can reach it!"

The back end of the horse shifted. "Which pocket?"

"Front." Lennox answered. The whole horse shifted. I could see the spot where Epps's arms were moving under the fabric to the front. He must have started feeling around, because Will jumped. "Okay! Not the phone, not the phone! That's defiantly not the phone!" he must have grabbed something else… Ew, gross!

"Your right, it's too small." Cheeky bastard. Nice one though, total burn on Will's part! "Got it!" Epps had to be smirking, because he sounded amusedly smug for having grabbed another man in the junk. The horse shifted and his hand poked out of a seam. "Here, someone take this!"

Mikaela left me clinging to Sam as she went to fetch the phone. Once she took it, she flipped it open and started dialing away. She started talking into it moments later.

"Epps." Will growled. "I aught to let one rip, right in your face!"

"Don't do it man! I'll do it too, and I had tacos for dinner before we met up! Don't make me bean fart your out of this suit!"

The phone clacked shut, and then Mikaela wisely tucked it into Sarah's pocket. "They're on their way." She informed us. "Optimus will be here first to pick up Nightstrider. He said he'll be a minute; he's around the corner at the traffic light. Ironhide's six cars behind him."

"Kaela!" I called. She turned and walked to me, stooping down and most likely giving Sam quite the view of her cleavage. I held out my candy bucket. "Here. Yours and Sam's."

She smiled at me and took the bucket. Then she gave me a quick hug. "You are freezing!"

"Told you." I quirked an eyebrow plating at her. Did she think I would be warm?

The rumbling of a familiar semi truck's engine boomed up the street as Optimus turned onto the road. I grinned. It would be warm in his cab, most definitely. And I would have my blanket.

As Optimus pulled up and popped open his door, Mikaela shoved her candy into Sam's hands and scooped me up. Dangling limply in her grasp, because she didn't have enough clothing for me to hold onto with my claws, she walked us to the truck that was Optimus. Stepping up onto the rim, Mikaela slid me onto the seat.

"I'll see you later, alright?" She waved at me.

I nodded and slid to the center of the elongated seat. Scooping up my blanket, I wrapped it around myself. "Later!" I called as she stepped down and the door shut.

Optimus's voice boomed from around me as I settled down and enjoyed the heat and my warm blanket. "Did you have fun, Nightstrider?"

I nodded. "Yup."

He rumbled a laugh. Then his glove compartment popped open. Inside was a small human sized glowing energon thing; it looked like a human lollypop. "Happy Halloween Nightstrider."


	66. Autobot Ambassador

(_**Well I'm certainly glad you all seemed to like what happened in our little Halloween interlude~ Horse Lennox and Epps were hilarious to write~ I've been in one before, thankfully I was the front, and its really awkward XD especially when my own phone started ringing in my back pocket.**_

_**My cousin says that horse costumes are so passé~ and if you can guess what passé means, then you get a round of applause from me!**_

_**Enjoy, some time has passed for our favorite character, so we'll see where she's at now!**_

_**Two random facts; One, I wrote this while listening to Brittany Spears. Two, I know a really long word.**_

_**. Kudos to you if you know what it is and can pronounce it like I can!**_

_**Sorry if the chapter gets a bit crappy or melancholy, but I've been having a reoccurring nightmare that I cannot remember for the life of me after I wake up in a panic.**_

_**QUESTION FOR THE READERS! Should NightStrider grow to be taller then the twins? I think so, but that would be so that she doesn't fall into the norm with most stories having their femmes being ungodly short.**_)

My hand came loudly to meet with my forehead plates, worsening my already throbbing headache. A frustrated noise came from my vocal processor, resounding in my head like a baritone drum on crack. Large red hands rubbed circles between my door wings, adding pressure at random places to work out the knots in my cables and wires. In front of my optics was a pile of data pads; stacked high enough to cast a shadow off of the desk they were resting on, and next to that desk was five days more worth that had been done without rest. My hands scrawled quickly over the pads, filling in information and other things that were required. Slowly, the un-done pile was disappearing, being swallowed up and devoured by the done pile of data pads. Most of it was useless information that would never be used for anything other then just bugging the hell out of me. Truly a monotonous job at the moment.

Three long and pressuring months have passed. A surprising lot of things have changed in such a short period of time. First, I've gone through another growth spurt, in the med bay though of course. Now I stand at eighteen feet, one foot shorter then my twins, and weigh in at a rounded up total of one two tons, or four thousand pounds. I still think its my armor that weighs that much… I think we weighed me when I was in protoform once, at around fifteen feet if memory serves, and if I'm correct I weighed in at around fifteen hundred pounds.

Nonetheless it still surprised the twins when I walked out being almost as tall as them. Ratchet has also kindly informed me that my body is going to go through another growth spurt soon because it, my body, believes that it is time for me to be of further use to our race if you know what I mean. Ratchet says a sample of my nanites told him this… Well whatever, there's a reason why I'm only a sometimes aid and not a full medic. Any way, Ratchet says that I might grow today, or start tomorrow. Maybe even next week, but sometime soon none the less.

I have still yet to hold Leo, but I've also been very busy. He can feel that, within my spark, and is accommodating to it. Elita still likes to pressure me about holding him and bonding with him, but I've told her that when I'm fully ready, and when things aren't as busy, then I will hold him. It would be on my terms, my terms alone, not on hers. Papa says that's the makings of a good leader and a valuable liaison to the humans, but he also says that it is good to give a little to get a little.

Mister Nakajima proved to be a very valuable ally, providing much more metal for us to fix up our new base. The base was finished about a week after I got out of the med bay; and the whole thing is actually really small. But then and again, we're in Washington D.C; there isn't really a whole lot of space for us to build seeing as D.C isn't exactly very open space wise.

We have very small rooms, only big enough for a bed; usually the size doesn't really matter much since the twins have a huge bed that fits in there anyways, and a desk/shelf area. The brig is small, only ten cells this time, one still occupied with the Decepticon. Papa, Ironhide, and Ratchet are butting heads when it comes to voting on what happens to the Decepticon, a grounded seeker I was told, whose designation they learned was BlackNova. They cannot seem to decide on whether they should completely go through his memories, even if he doesn't have anything to show, kill him, or if they should simply wipe his processor and convert him into an Autobot.

The med bay and brig take up around twenty percent of the base, another twenty is in our rooms, bathrooms that were the last things to be finished, and human barracks. Five percent is the weapons vault, Wheeljack's lab, and the gym for both species. Ten percent is the training area, where soldiers and Autobots train new members of NEST to fight the Decepticons in a proficient manner. Another five percent is the food and recreation quart for both species, taking up that amount of size mainly because it has to house bots as well as humans. The remaining forty percent is used in various things; meetings, experiments, and before the barracks area was made, it housed bots and humans alike.

Halloween has come and passed in a flurry of candy, kids, and falling leaves; leaving Thanksgiving literally peeking around the corner, lurking to pop up and cause havoc with parades about three days from now. The soldiers want to go watch it with us bots, cheaply using us to stand or sit upon in car form so that they can see the parades over the immense masses of humans. I declined, seeing as it is very awkward having a human walk on your roof.

Let's just say that before the showers were made, some of us got desperate and asked the humans to assist in removing the dirt and city pollution from our armor. I, admittedly, was one of the bots who asked, and Lennox along with Epps and Fig were only too pleased to assist in our washing. Who knew the top of my hood in car form is ticklish to human feet.

Now Chromia is doing well, being half way through her pregnancy if you think about it. At three months along, Chromia is immeasurably larger then Elita-1 had been when she was carrying Leo. Chromia looks like she could be due _now_ instead of in three more months, but… I guess each femme carries their children differently then the next. For an expectant femme, she isn't doing to bad when it comes to mood swings. Chromia is surprisingly tolerant and less likely to go shooting off her cannons. She's… happy. Way past happy and content, actually. Chromia is thrilled, ecstatic, and generally thrilled to be carrying. Accept that one time that the sparkling kicked a certain spot that made her nauseous, and then expel her energon. It was both gross and hilarious, though I could sympathize. I've expelled far to much during my short life.

Papa has put me in charge now of doing any workings with ambassadors from other countries, so now Kureno and I are in communication a lot. Optimus will contact the ambassadors, or try to, and will set up dates and times for me to deal with them. Then, Papa will give me the low down on what he wants me to try and achieve. I have already had contact with the Russian ambassador, Yl'svorica Slastinia, the English ambassador, James Kilfort (Keel-Fuurt), the ambassador from Spain, Jose Gonzalez, and the Indonesian ambassador Kartika Lestari Ndar. Currently I have a meeting set with them sometime next month.

Tomorrow though, the bane of my existence wants my attention. Charlotte Mearing, the director of National intelligence has decided that she wants to take up an issue with the Autobot ambassador. Which would be me. Damn it all, she also sent me this stack of data-pads to fill out.

As the last data pad was filled out and set aside, I unclenched my hand from the pen used to fill out the pads, my joints making a delightful noise of un-cramping as I straightened my palm out. My optics started to drift shut because my focus was lost. Five days worth of work, technically if I had taken sleeping breaks and breaks other then the occasional energon fueling it would have taken longer. I hadn't meant to do it; honestly, I just got into a rhythm. Some people have that happen, and I just did.

Arms looped one of my arms over a broad shoulder, and another wound around my waist. "Princess, you need to not do those long writing shifts, okay? They take too much out of you, just stick with working during the day." Sideswipe chastised me as he pulled me up from the chair where I had sat. My armor and body creaked ominously, a forewarning of my fast approaching growth spurt. "Sunstreaker is on his way here, he's just turned down our hall. We'll give you a rub down, and then you can recharge. Your cables and wires are all knotted up, Princess."

I merely nodded, letting my helm loll tiredly to rest docilely against Sideswipe's shoulder as he half dragged me to our bed and half carried me. Indistinctly I heard the door slide open, and the sound of Sunstreaker stalking across the room as the door slid shut moments later.

"Sideswipe." Sunstreaker grunted. "She's dead on her servos. We'll just give her a rub down in the morning, and some energon. She's going to need it."

Gently I was laid down, two larger male bodies following me. "Just stay with me." I murmured as my optics slid shut. "Please?"

"Of course Babe," Sunstreaker drawled. They both slid close to me, and I let myself relax down into their embrace. "Just go to sleep, we'll be here when you awake."

"Ten." I groaned. "I need to be up by ten tomorrow. Have to meet with Charlotte…"

A hand roamed over my helm. "Princess, Princess, Princess, we'll wake you when the time comes, okay?"

"Go to sleep." Sunstreaker drawled. "We'll give you a nice rub down when you wake up, alright babe?"

"Mmmmmmmmm…" I drifted off, the exhaustion of the past days catching up.


	67. Convenient Placement

(_**For all my readers, thank you all for the reviews! Over five hundred… it warms my heart that you all think so well of Grab It By The Horns! For everyone out there, I would like to give a shout out thank you!**_

_**Remember, '…' means a break in the page!**_

_**Please, enjoy this chapter I worked so hard in!**_

_**And, No-bake cookies are a lie! You do have to cook them!**_)

I was awoken sometime around nine thirty the next day to both of the twins giving me a pleasant rubdown. Sometime during the night, they had removed both of my outer armor layers; I could feel it through the thin threads that ran from me to them. If your wondering what I'm speaking of, well I recently found out from Ratchet that there are little teeny tiny threads that extend from our bodies to our armor. Ratchet said that the function was similar to the puppet masters 'jutsu' on some show called Naruto. Why Ratchet knows this, I will never know.

Nonetheless, one of the twins, Sunstreaker I believe, was massaging my back. His hands pressed deeply against my protoform armor, making it creak slightly, but loosening the cables and wires intertwined beneath the reinforced skin. It felt wonderful. Sideswipe I'm guessing was down at my legs, rubbing and working the calf area in relaxing and splendid motions.

Flexing my toes automatically as my body woke itself into awareness, I felt Sideswipe jump slightly as my claws slid out to some extent. "Looks like someone is awake." He chirped in an amused tone. His hands working further down, Sideswipe took my feet into his hands and started working them too.

"Morning." I murmured sleepily, my optics taking the moment to flutter open. "That feels nice…"

"As it should." Sunstreaker voiced. "I'll fetch your energon, Babe." I felt his hands move away, and the bed groan as he moved off of it. My audio receptors listened to him cross the room.

Turning, I sat myself up. Sideswipe relinquished my foot to scoot up next to me and kiss me sweetly. Responding in kind to Sideswipes smooch, I took the time to pull on the magnetic strings that were attached to my armor, letting it move from where ever it had been placed and slide across the floor to my body. Sliding up my legs and body piece by piece, I found myself covered by armor moments later. Leaning back, I sent Sideswipe a tired smile, one that drifted to Sunstreaker as he strolled back towards us.

Swooping down, Sunstreaker deposited a container of energon, the tart kind I love, into my hands. Sunstreaker's optics flashed playfully at me as he took a seat next to me. "I fetched your energon, and my brother got a kiss. Don't I deserve one too?"

Chuckling, I nodded. Leaning forward, I gave him a nice and deep kiss. Pulling back, I smirked at him, "How was that for a reward?" Bringing my energon up, I took a deep drink and winked at him.

"Pretty good," Sunstreaker drawled as Sideswipe leaned his helm on my shoulder to stifle a snicker. "Could have been longer, but as it is, one kiss is never enough for us."

Chuckling Sideswipe piped in, "Oh no you don't, she has a meeting with the hell-spawned glitch lady."

I snorted into my energon at what Sunstreaker retorted.

"What? We've got fifteen minutes; I could go for a quickie."

…

It was going to be a long, long day. I knew this the moment I left the twins room.

With a frown on my face and a not quite noticeable slouch and stomp to my step, I walked down the hall towards the room where I would be meeting Charlotte Mearing, Director of National Intelligence. Director of being a pain in my giant metal black and flame colored ass. No, the twins didn't do anything, got in a small wrestling match as I was leaving though. Don't know why, but it probably had to do with their little twin mind speak thing.

Charlotte Mearing. Major ugh moment. I would rather be back in our bedroom sleeping, but no, I have to meet with the biggest bitch in the country. Or at least the biggest small bitch I have ever met.

'_Be as polite as you can, sweetspark. That's all you can do._' Optimus reminded me from our bond. Sending me reassuring feelings along with love, he chuckled. '_If anyone can deal with Charlotte Mearing, then it will be you._'

'_That's helpful Papa._' I commented dryly. Bracing myself as I approached the door, I sighed. '_Wish me luck, I'm going to need it._'

He chuckled in my mind. '_Good luck._' Papa teased and then let me be so I could focus at the problem waiting behind the door for me. Standing in front of the door I inhaled and exhaled loudly. Steeling my nerves and strengthening my posture, also attempting to tap into the small part of me that knew how to be a diplomat, I slid the door open and stepped into the room where our conference would take place.

It was a small room, large to a human, small to us Cybertronians. There was a chair next to a shelf like spot that had a table with chairs and a staircase leading to the top. Watching me from her seat at the table was Charlotte Mearing, in all her pencil suited, blond and glasses glad glory. Other then the places for her and I to sit, the room was barren for about another fifteen feet out.

"Hello." I greeted as politely as I could. Walking the short distance to the chair, Mearing's eyes following me all the way, I took a seat uncomfortably as my hip joints creaked. "I was informed a few days ago that you needed to speak to me."

"I needed to speak with the Autobot Representative and Ambassador, not some Autobot child of their leader pretending to work things out with other countries." Arching an argument eyebrow at me, Mearing folded her hands in her lap.

Shaking my helm, I sighed. I had addressed this multiple times in the data pads I had filled out. "My standing as the daughter of Optimus Prime has nothing to do with my placement. I am here because I am the best suited to doing my job and negotiating with the humans until someone more qualified arrives and is able to do my job better then I can. So far, it has worked out fairly well." I shifted where I sat, taking pressure off of my left metal ass cheek and hip.

"Yes." Mearing scrutinized me for a second. "It has been brought to my attention that you have been in contact with other countries besides the United States, and that you have been trading your technology with them in return for resources that the United States could provide just as well. Care to tell me why?"

Not really. "At the time our first deal was struck up, I had been in the med bay from a rather nasty Decepticon attack," No need for me to list that I was actually losing my mind at the time as well, "and I needed a lot of repairs done. There were two other bots in there with me as well, one missing a foot and the other missing a leg, and anyone who was in the fight needed some form of medical help, though most of it wasn't serious enough for everyone to be in the med bay. We did not have enough supplies to repair everyone, let alone anyone." I drawled. "The American Government wanted to barter for supplies, when we did not have anything we could barter. We as a united front of Cybertronians do a lot for this government. We fight, we die, we train, and we protect. Your government wanted more, however. The government wanted weapons technology; technology we were not willing to give-"

Charlotte interrupted me, "And yet you willingly gave technology to other governments."

Making a noise in my throat, I sighed and shifted to my other ass cheek. "We did not give weapons technology. We gave communicating technology, so the Japanese people could attempt and make their phones more advanced. We did not make it easy, anything they learn from what we gave them will be because they had their scientists decipher it, and had to learn about it on their own from a model."

"Yes." Mearing gave me a stressed tone. "I am aware. However, that does not change the fact that while we are harboring your species, you will not give us anything in return."

"Charlotte." I barked lightly and shifted to the other ass cheek. "You are missing a valuable point. We fight for your species, and your country. I personally have died to save your species as a whole, and your planet." Leaning forward, my body groaned in protest as it stressed some joints that would like to start breaking and growing, I narrowed my optics at her. "We have fought for your species, we have died. And yet, while we do live in your country and do your bidding for the most part, you will not give us materials so we can fix ourselves up and get back up to working capacity. How is that fair?"

Nodding her head, Mearing sighed minutely. "If you died, how can you be here now?"

"Not my place to speak on that. Talk to Optimus, he'll discuss that with you."

"Nonetheless, you do make a good point." Staring calmly up at me, Director Mearing continued, "But, what I think is correct does not meet up with the standards of my bosses, so therefore it does not meet up with mine."

Sighing, I took a moment to pinch the bridge of my nose and think. If I remember correctly in the Dark of the Moon Movie, the United States had some sort of Cybertronian devices. I just can't remember what… it had something to do with detection… Oh yes! Energon detectors, which had been placed around major places to protect them from Decepticons and other things that could land. There were also long range defense systems watching the skies, if I remember correctly. We also solved human conflicts to prevent mankind from bringing harm to itself, or something along those lines.

Leaning forward, I sighed. "Alright. Charlotte, Ma'am-"

"Don't call me Ma'am, do I look like a Ma'am to you?"

Rumbling at her, I grumped, "Yes, yes you do. Now, as I was saying; I think I have the solution to our little problem." I trailed off, to see if she would bite the bait.

Charlotte did. "Oh?"

I nodded, grinned, and shifted ass cheeks. "Alright, how about this. We can give you defense technology; Energon Detectors to guard your larger cities, a defense mechanism that is long range and will watch your skies for landings, be it Autobot or Decepticon." Heaving a sigh internally, I added, "And we can work for you, assist our human allies and such. However, whatever you request would have to be run by Optimus, I don't know if he'll agree to whatever you want us to do. In return, you give us a bit of leeway on who we communicate with, government wise, and also give us any information that you have on Cybertronian technology that we do not know about."

Charlotte's face cracked into a smug half grin. "Now I think we're speaking the same language. I will talk to my superiors and get back to you with their response."

Nodding, I stood and stretched, my body giving a painfully loud creak and my hip a cracking sound that had Charlotte staring at me briefly. Waving, I turned and strode out the door as my other hip gave a crack noise. Striding quickly towards the med bay on the other side of the compound, I had to dodge humans all the way though most seem to know how to dive out of the way from under foot, I kept my pace hurried as my joints started to creak more, forewarning that I was going to start growing soon. Probably in just a few short minutes, if memory was anything to go by. I have to get to the med bay, or I'm likely to cause some damage if and when I start convulsing.

'_Ratchet?'_ I comm. Linked him.

'_Whaaat? I'm a bit wrapped up at the moment. Your glitch slagged intendeds have used this strange substance to stick me to a wall.'_

'_Ah… that's a problem then, because my body says it's time to grow.'_

'… _Now? Now of all times!'_

'_Uh, yeah.'_

'Slag it all, I've instructed them to get me down this instant so I can deal with you when you get here. Will you make it?'

My shin armor cracked half way up, causing a small whine to come forth from my vocal processors. One of the humans that I had dodged stared at me, before muttering something into his walkie-talkie thing. It wasn't exactly a secret that I grow painfully, since all the soldiers we have now were present for my other grown spurt. Ratchet must have warned them or something.

Half the base done, another half to go… 'I don't know.'

'Prime is going to intercept your path, he'll stay with you if you can't make it here in time.'

I saw my father moving towards me from another hallway. 'I see him.'

'Good.'

"Hi papa." I said as I passed him. Her swung around to stride easily next to me on the right side of me.

"Hello sweetspark. I hope this didn't interrupt your meeting?" Papa rumbled at me, pressing a large hand to my back and door wings as he guided me through the crowds of human soldiers. Mirage and the little twins watched as we passed then focused back on what they were doing.

"Not at all." I breathed, grimacing as my back armor started spider web cracking painfully under the pressure of Optimus's hand. "You know, the convenience rating of having the conference rooms on the other side of the base sucks."

My intakes hitched as my hip cracked and my right leg buckled, now useless as would soon follow the next. Papa swung me up into his arms easily; chuckling at my slightly disgruntled face, and let his much longer legs eat up the distance. He closed in on the med bay, striding through it as I stiffened up with the next set of cracks.

"Set her on the berth," Ratchet instructed.

Papa set me down, strapping my wrists and feet in so I couldn't hurt anyone with convulsions, which were starting in my left foot. The twins were quick to join me, one on each side. Papa ran a hand over my helm. "I'll be here."

"So will we." Sideswipe chimed.

I sighed, crying out as my body set to growing.

It was going to be a long, long day.


	68. Learning Experience

(_**Hello and greetings to all of my fans! I would like to thank you for sticking with me through everything and all the hardships, lol. No, this isn't done, not even close!**_

_**Now, I would like to inform you all that After 67 chapters, NightStrider is fully-grown now! Do you know what this means? This means that Nightstrider is now eligible, by Cybertronian standards, to sparkmate! I think soon enough we will be hearing bells~**_

_**To my brain twin, Zayren heart, whom I haven't heard from in some time, I hope that your all right, and doing well. Write me soon cause I miss our conversations!**_

_**Enjoy~**_)

I slept soundly, sleeping probably like a log or a sunken rock. Sleep was never so deep; unless you count the time I was dead. But nonetheless, I slept well. I dreamt nice dreams, memories with my mother, memories with my adoptive parents, my twins. Oh, yes, I slept nice. But… how did I fall asleep?

Oh yeah… I was growing… it hurt so much. It felt like I was being torn in two and sat on by the lard ass Megatron himself. My armor shattering, growing and healing only to shatter once more as another pulse of growth hit me. The struts that make up my bones had elongated painfully, and my hips and chassis widened slightly once more… it hurt. Oh god it had hurt. Then Ratchet had come at me with a needle. It put me out…

My optics opened and my processor started up suddenly, though it left my mind slightly sluggish, to see Ratchet staring steadily down at me. It startled me enough that I jolted, skittering sideways off of the medical bed. I hit the ground with a clang and a grunt. "Shit! Fuck! God damned glitch slagged pits! Ratchet! What the fuck?"

Ratchet stared down at me in amusement, offering me a large mint green hand. "Skittish are we?"

"Watching too much Naruto are we?" I shot back as I rubbed a palm over my optics. Taking his hand, I allowed him to pull me up, my door wings stretching and twitching with my antennas in irritation. When I stood, my balance was off. Way off. My legs shook and I had to use my other hand to brace myself on Ratchet's shoulder. "Oh…" I groaned. "What the frag?"

"Watch your language. Your balance has been thrown off by the growth spurt, and I forgot to fix it to match your height before you woke up this time." Ratchet barked. Carefully, his hands moved and braced my shoulders upright as I gained my balance. "I have to say, you've grown a lot, youngling. Twenty feet tall, Nightstrider. Though thank Primus your done growing."

Wow. Twenty feet. That's a lot. I didn't think it would be a two-foot growth period for me this time. "How long was I out?"

"Your record has exceeded itself. You were out for two days. Good timing, if I say so myself." Ratchet answered. Guiding me back to the bed, Ratchet began to do the typical routine tests whenever I would have a large growth spurt. "Worried lots of folks, you know. The twins are currently asleep inside their room, they were planning on waiting for you but I kindly declined. Your father was called to a meeting about an hour ago with that Mearing female. Stubborn glitch that one is." He faded off for a moment. "Elita was here, but Leo has been throwing fits as of late. He wasn't to happy when he could not feel your emotions clearly after he felt your pain."

I scratched the back of my helm, pursing my lip plates. "Yeah… I guess I should really hold him some time soon…"

"Yes you should." Ratchet agreed. Leaning backwards, Ratchet nodded. "There, I fixed your balancing programs, so you can stand up without wobbling now. You're healthy, though your systems and processors are stressed and had recent signs of negligence in sleep and energon consummation showing… well, your body is that of a fully functional adult femme. Your reproductive systems are online, and so you could now spark with those glitch slagged twins." He patted me on the leg. "Just give your father some time before you do. I don't want to have to deal with it when Optimus submits them to the med bay for defiling his daughter."

I snorted. "Papa will be warned," I agreed. "Got a mirror or something shiny? I wana see what I look like now."

Ratchet chuckled at me. Tugging me up off the bed, he pulled me along into a backroom. There stood a full-length mirror, or at least full length to a Cybertronian. Stepping up, I peered into it and gazed upon my reflection. I didn't look too different, but it looks like my armor fits me better now. I think I finally fit into the mass of my alternate mode. My stomach area was longer then before by a good couple inches, and was composed of several plates that were able to be used for defense but were soft enough that I would be able to flex what ever way I wanted. My hips, my thighs slightly, and my chest were all slightly wider. Nothing else really changed, except that I now look like a mature adult. Much better; an adult body to match my adult mind.

Grinning at Ratchet, I chirped, "I look bitch'n! Now, may I go? I want to go surprise the twins; after all, I'm now taller then them!"

Ratchet waved a hand dismissively at me. "Go for it. If you get carried away though, and become with spark the first interface, then I will- do not doubt me sparkling- remove one or the other twins arm and beat _you_ with it. Am I understood?"

Giving Ratchet a one fingered salute, not the rude kind, I nodded. "Clearly." Turning with no wobble, I waved. "Catch you later!"

Striding out the door, I walked out into the hall. Epps and Will caught my eye as they flagged me down once I entered one of the general bays. Walking over, dodging what few humans there was, I eventually face the two humans as they stood on a raised platform.

Will reached out and patted the side of my face softly. "Looks like your done growing squirt. I miss you being as tall as my leg. Then, it was so much easier to soak you with a water gun." He smiled at me. "Listen, Epps and I need to talk to you for a bit."

"I was a bit busy, I wanted to surprise the twins, but yeah, I can spare a minute for my favorite army humans." Nodding at them, I leaned carefully against the stand, stretching and shifting my door wings ever so slightly.

Cocking his hip to the side slightly Epps gave me a slow smile. "Alright, well the news isn't good. First off, NEST is technically disbanding."

"Well shit." I stated bluntly. Well, I guess it had to happen some how. In the third movie, Epps wasn't with Lennox, and Epps had said he still had old NEST friends. "What else is bad?" I had a guess…

"I'll be stuck going too." Epps murmured. "I'll be going to work at a separate branch, where I most likely wont ever see another Autobot again."

Sighing, I nodded. I knew this would happen, because in the third movie Epps was somewhere else… "How long until it's been disbanded and you've gone?"

"We have one year." Lennox said. "One year as of three days ago."

I ran a hand over my faceplates. "Shit piles hit the fan one after another don't they?" I grumped. Well, at least that gives us one year… And then NEST disbands, all except for Will. "One year. That isn't much is it? What are we gonna do until everyone is kicked to the curb?"

"Horrible slang by the way, that's outdated by several years." Epps grinned up at me. "Well, anyways, we heard that you're fully grown now."

Nodding, I shifted slightly. "Yeah, what of it?"

"Sooo," Lennox drawled, grinning at me. "Your now of legal age to go do the dirty tango with the twins!"

My hand came up to cover my face. "Not happening until I'm sparkmated…"

"Actualy, I have an idea!" Will chirped. He leaned over and whispered to Epps, and I didn't bother tuning my hearing to listen to them. I sighed and waited. They whispered and chuckled for a moment. "Alright, I think, if one of us can go online and get a license for it, that you should have a wedding!"

My jaw popped open and my hand fell away from my face. "_What_?" I said in a slightly flabbergasted tone.

"Yeah! And we can get you a dress, and the twins some tuxedos! Ratchet's never too old to learn how to play the song they always play at weddings!"

"_Guys_!" I hissed. "I'm a _giant robot_! There isn't a clothing factory on this _planet_ that could possibly make a dress large enough for me to fit into, let alone tuxedos for the mechs!" Throwing my hands into the air, I questioned, "Have you guys lost it? We're Cybertronian, we cant wear rings, dresses, or any of that shit!"

Epps stared up at me, and with complete honesty, said, "We can paint you white, and that can be like your dress. For the guys, we'd pain them black and white with a painted red rose."

"Not happening. Not only would the twins pitch a bitch-fit if anyone implied ruining their paint, no one would do it. It's not happening." I shook my helm. "Now, I'm gonna go. I wana surprise the twins. We'll hang out later, I promise." Sidestepping their platform, I walked past while waving over my shoulder.

"Nightstrider!" Will called. I paused and pivoted. Arching an eyebrow plate, I waited. "If the twins asked you to marry them, human style, would you do it?"

Would I? I never got to have a wedding as a human. I never really got to have much of a relationship ether. Should I take the chance to do something as a Cybertronian that I never got to do as a human? No, the real question is, why is this even an option? If my mechs asked me to marry them, then yeah, I'm gonna say yes. I love them. "Yes." I answered him. "I would."

Turning again, my optics just caught a grin that came to his face, giving Lennox a bit of a boyish look with his sandy brown-blond hair. All human men are the same. Little kids inside until they die.

Brisk walking off down the hall way that lead to the Autobots quarters, I let a grin fall across my face. I can't wait to see Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's reactions. I'm taller then them by one foot! Not a whole lot, but enough now that I can tease them about being shorter then their femme!

When I reached our door, which resided one door down from my parents room, I slid it open just enough to peek inside. Both twins were crashed on the bed; the spot where I normally lay was vacant, almost beckoning me to join them. Slipping inside, I tip toed to the bed and sat down on the end.

"Sideswipe," I called quietly, "Sunstreaker."

I got a muffled noise and a twitch of Sunstreaker's foot, his toes curling and the wheel that can pop down and act as his skates rotated somewhat. Snorting slightly, I reached up and tapped them on the legs.

No response. Sighing, I slid up a little further to gently tap their hands. Before I could do that however, the twins were lightning fast and somehow pinned me beneath them. One half of Sunstreaker resting on and against me on my right, and one half of Sideswipe resting on and against me on my left. Yep, I was sufficiently pinned.

Sunstreaker captured my mouth passionately, nipping and licking my bottom lip with his metal teeth and tongue. Sideswipe purred into my audio receptor, "I see what a nice femme you've become. Taller then us now aren't you?"

Sunstreaker released my lips to nibble on a couple of my throat cables, leaving what felt like a trail of sparking heat in his path. "Thaaats right…" I moaned. "And you better not forget it."

"Mmmm. We wont." Sunstreaker murmured. "But that doesn't mean that we can't make you purr like a little turbo cat." Sliding up, he nibbled gently on an antenna, making me purr.

"Just like a turbo cat." Sideswipe agreed. "Now," he purred. "We have a question for you." Sunstreaker stopped his ministrations for a brief bit to lean himself up and look at me. Sideswipe followed his brother, both gazing down on me with dark blue optics, shining with something akin to love and lust.

"Ask away." I said, slightly breathlessly. Who wouldn't be, when you had two delicious mechs making you feel hot and bothered? An insane person, that's who.

"We were talking to the humans the other day, and they mentioned this strange human custom." Sunstreaker murmured quietly to me.

"Oh?"

"Oh yes," Sideswipe gave me a half smirk. "Oh yes indeed. They told us about this human custom called marriage. One that sounds fun."

I arched an eyebrow plate at them. "Are you asking?"

"So impatient! We're getting there, Princess."

"Aaand we're there." Sunstreaker drawled lazily at me. "Will you marry us, providing that the humans can get a license?"

No did not even cross my mind. "Yes." I answered.

"Good." They grinned at me. "Now, while we can't go all the way until we are 'wed' so to speak, it doesn't mean that we cant have some fun." Sideswipe dipped down and set to lavishing my throat.

"Mmm…" I moaned. "So, so true. But I'm inexperienced in this…" Leaning up, I nibbled on Sunstreaker's ear fin things, enticing a shadowed gasp from my mech. Running my metal tongue over it, I trailed kissed to his mouth, where Sunstreaker pressed ravishing kiss after kiss onto me.

Sideswipe slipped up and stole my mouth from his brother, sweetly kissing me as Sunstreaker slid up and sucked an antenna into his mouth and began teasing it sumptuously with his tongue. The mouth that was meshing with mine, the softer and more flexible plates that make up our faces allowing such a contact to happen, allowed a tongue to slip past my own lips. Oh, so he wanted to play that game huh? Winding my own tongue around his, I allowed the tip of my tongue to caress the top of his mouth. Sideswipe's own tongue slid back to run over my metal teeth.

Through the engines revving happily, and the moans coming from the three of us, I heard Sunstreaker. "Don't worry babe, it'll be a learning experience for us all. We can learn _together…_"

Oh learn we shall.


	69. Tell Us If We Have To Run

(_**Formally I apologize for the long wait; I've had a long week and many nights of little sleep due to homework overload. And sorry it's short; I had oodles of problems with this one. It just didn't flow out right…**_

_**Okay, first order of business! I would like to thank Rose', Melikecake, bee-roxs98, Cairistona, Sinead Rivka, and my brain twin Zayren heart! If I hadn't had our conversations, short or several hundred messages, then this chapter would not have been born! Speaking with fellow authors gives me the will to keep writing and has kept me sane through all of this! Especially this chapter since I don't really know how this would actually play out.**_

_**So thank you, all of you.**_

_**Furthermore, I would like to say that the little bunnies keep distracting me from the big one, though they take me along the same trails! Anyways, have fun reading and enjoy!**_

_**PS… Breaking Dawn was EPIC! Or at least the hot wolves were. I threw up a little in my mouth when I had to look at Edward… and Bella…**_)

Sitting in front of my parents, and we're located in an empty meeting room. Leaning between the twins so I rested myself on their shoulders, I covered my mouth as a yawn threatened to escape me. It did.

It's been a very busy three weeks. We've had a transmission from another Autobot that goes by the name Red Alert, who is obscenely paranoid if my memories provide correctly. He says that he has some scientist Autobot named Que traveling with him and that they would arrive together. Fortunately for us he's landing somewhere in Alaska, near Sitka if I'm correct, where it is undoubtedly going to be fucking cold and not many people around He's to land in a month. Or at least that's what our scanners are telling us.

Ah yes, Charlotte proved her worth. We get a small salary, I get one of about one thousand five hundred dollars a month due to my position as Ambassador and warrior and part time med student, which is from what I'm told, a way for us to pay for fuel which I found out that Ratchet uses some diesel and unleaded for our energon. We now have some pretty far stretching leeway with whom we talk to country wise, and she even finagled us a way to do little favors for other countries as well. The energon detectors are in the process of being built, the long-range scanner is fully functional and is watching the skies. We haven't had any missions yes, and I'm not looking forward to them when we do.

As for the rates of salaries, due to Papa's position as leader, he gets roughly three grand a month, Ratchet and Jolt following at twenty five hundred. Ironhide rests at two grand, along with Chromia, Prowl, Jazz, and Bumblebee. I follow after that, mine only as it is because I have three occupations technically according to the government, with Sideswipe, Sunstreaker and everyone else following after at one grand. Even the sparklings have little salaries; they get one hundred a month that gets drawn into a little bank account until they're fully-grown. Obviously the government doesn't know that transformers take a long time to grow up.

Also my meeting with the ambassadors is being held tomorrow. I haven't met them yet, and I'm not feeling inclined to actually do so. Also, I heard that the Russian chick is a real bitch to deal with. Like, bitchier then Mearing kind of bitchy. I am _so_ excited to do this. But, lucky me, I get to drag one other Autobot in there with me. I still haven't decided who I'm going to take, but I'm leaning towards dragging Prowl with me. Or just going it alone… Yeah, I think I'll just go it alone. Mearing is going to be there too. God, this is going to suck ass.

Christmas is also in about two weeks, and everyone is going to celebrate; even the Autobots. There's going to be a big shindig, Sam and Mikaela are coming, along with Sam's parents. So I have to get gifts. _For everyone_. Or at least those who are close to me. For my Papa and Elita, well, I've been working on a scrapbook. For the scrapbook, I've been taking my memories of when I was a sparkling up until now and have been printing them off from some data pads. Not the major bad memories; at least most of the good memories from those times, including some Boost Okay pictures and Papa playing Chubby Bunny. I even added some of my memories of Leo. Like when I first saw him. For the twins I have a plan to give them a fair amount of good art supplies, except that will drain my meager salary. But for my fiancé's, who buy art supplies quite frequently but cant afford the stuff that is of good quality, what little I can do to help them I will. Even if that means buying art supplies with the little amount of salary I receive soon. I already have it ordered from a special company.

I think for the humans, I'll get something like dog tags with names and the Autobot symbol done or something. Mikaela, I'll get her some earrings, one with Autobot face symbols on them. Yeah… I think that'll work. For Sam, I think I'll get him a man thong as a joke. Oh boy, he'll probably freak out, shit himself, and give himself a hernia.

Well, nonetheless, the twins and I have done a phenomenal job at hiding our engagement from the rest of the world. Well, for the most part. Lennox and Epps know, and they're helping us plan the wedding. They have it set to be around Valentines Day next year. Now the hardest part that we're going to have to do… is tell my parents.

Who are conveniently sitting patiently in front of us, awaiting the reason we called them here.

"Papa," I drawled, "Mom. Okay, we called you here to tell you something."

"Oh?" Elita trilled, inquisitiveness flowing to me from both bonds. "Good news I hope?"

Out of the corner of my optics, I saw Sideswipe give a cheeky grin. "Oh we certainly believe its good news. But how you might take it we don't know."

Elbowing him slightly, I took their hands in mine. It drew my Fathers gaze, causing him to raise an optic plate at us. "Papa," I drawled again, "I'm going to be terribly blunt, so tell us if we need to run, okay?"

Optimus rumbled a laugh. "I doubt anything is going to make me tell you to run. But I will if it comes to that." Leaning forward, he laced his fingers and rested his elbows on the table we're currently seated at. His chin dropped down to rest on his hand. It gave him a very human look, but… it also gave him a 'The Godfather' look.

That's an image, Mafia Optimus with us as his cronies.

Sighing, I nudged Sunstreaker, "You wana tell him?"

Sunstreaker shook his head, nearly clipping my audio receptor with his ear fins as he leaned towards it. "Don't you know that it's always bad luck if the guy tells the father? I heard that from Epps."

"Sideswipe?"

"Sorry Princess, it's not happening."

I sighed. "All right. Papa?" I looked up at him. "You know the human custom of marriage, right?"

He nodded. "Yes, I have heard of it. I have over heard Will Lennox speaking of his and Sara Lennox's marriage."

Elita chuckled. "It sounded lovely, a long white… dress they call it, right?"

Sighing again, I blurted out our news. "We're getting married in February." Everything went quiet. Papa froze, Elita froze. The twins froze. I swallowed nervously. I couldn't get any feelings from Papa or Elita over the bonds. Leo, though, I got a happy feeling from. "After we're joined by the humans standards, then we'll… you know…" Not talking about my sex life with my parents. I don't have one yet, but still.

"Now, Prime," Sunstreaker started, "We love your daughter, and we want to be here for her forever."

"You think you are worthy of my Daughter." Papa stated.

They nodded against me. "Yes. Our sparks chose her, and hers chose us."

Indeed it had.

Suddenly Optimus's engine roared to life lividly. His optics darkened, and he blocked the bond. The noise made Sideswipe and Sunstreaker blink and shift against me. "Now," Optimus rumbled. "I would recommend running. Quickly. You have ten human seconds to get as far as you can. All three of you."

Surely my Papa's kidding. He wouldn't actually harm them… us… would he?

"One."

Apparently he would.

We scrambled. I kid you not. All three of us, in a tangle of limbs of both arms and legs, bolted. I threw open the door and we took off, dodging humans and other bots. Shouting for everyone to move, whom surprisingly they flung themselves from our pathways, our legs worked as hard as they could. Too bad we're a whole lot shorter then my father. We made it out of the hallways by the time I heard my father thundering after us.

"Run!" I called. "Run faster! He's coming!" We skidded around a corner, ducking past the med bay and continuing.

"We are running!" Sideswipe called. "We are running, and we have an angry Prime chasing us!"

"Sideswipe! Sunstreaker!" Papa bellowed. I turned my head to see his longer legs eating up the distance. "Get you're slagging aft's back here!"

"Run faster!" I shouted. "He's gaining on us!" We entered a straight stretch, no humans or bots in sight. We sped up. So did Papa.

And then suddenly we were pinned to the floor, all three of us, under sixteen thousand six hundred pounds of angry father Optimus prime. He had foot ball tackled us. Holy shit. Oh my god, were screwed! One by one he flipped us over. When we could all see him, he squinted down at us.

"Now, lets have us a civil talk, shall we?" He rumbled.


	70. Into The Ambassadors

(_**Hi! Guess what? We've hit the miraculous chapter 70! That is a milestone bridge we have leaped across! I hope to make it to at least a hundred chapters before the end comes! :D**_

_**On a sadder note, a friend of our family was found dead in her bed this morning. Her son found her. Her heart failed her in her sleep, the paramedics and doctors said, and she went peacefully while she slept. What a thanksgiving gift, huh? So it's kinda short, but I'm depressed… The lady who died was a good friend, and I miss her dearly. She did not deserve to die, and leave friends, family, and her child all alone in the world.**_

_**Any ways, great thanks to everyone who reviews and reads! And to Zayren heart for our added ambassador!**_

_**Random facts, if you watch Pom Poko, by studio Ghibli, the raccoon's pouches aren't pouches. The raccoons are considered Tanuki, or however it's spelled, and those are scrotums. They play with and flaunt ball sacks in a children's movie D:**_

_**Enjoy!**_

_**Pardon any spelling errors, my spell check died about half way through the chapter.**_)

Sitting in a room that's absolutely dead silence is awkward. Very awkward. Especially if some of the other occupants are staring at you. Kureno had yet to arrive, and so had another Ambassador who I found out was coming last minute, along with Charlotte. Yl'svorica has been slaring at me. Slaring is staring and glaring, just so you all know. Anyways, and James is sitting down messing with his phone, Jose is scribbling on a paper pad, a look of greedy concentration on his face as his eyes flicked between me and the paper. Kartika is sitting down calmly reading a book, Brisingr by Christopher Paolini by the looks of it. I opted out on having another bot in here with me, because that would make me look like a sissy-shit.

Yesterday when Papa football tackled us, he simply held us there until the twins politely put it that they wanted to marry me. He made them ask to marry me, and made them ask human style since we 'insisted upon doing human cultures and mannerisms'… it was embarrassing, and hilarious all at the same time. Except for the fact that Papa was resting on the tank that served as my bladder, and really made me have to pee. Lets just say that I did the robot pee-pee dance all the way to the bathrooms when I was dismissed.

Then I got stuck doing errands and stuff for Charlotte. I had to run her and her new lackey all over town for this and that. Really tired my wheels out. I went from one side of D.C to the other and back multiple times, and it left me exhausted because I had to battle traffic. Traffic is murder… especially when _you_ are the car that's stuck in it.

Shifting on my toe pads, I sighed. My legs were cramping from standing, and there are no tables, save for the human platform, in the enclosure. Shifting, I walked to the wall next to the humans plat form. I could still see them, and I would be able to rest my feet. Sliding down the wall, I sighed and fluttered my wings and antenna while scrunching up my knees and resting my elbows on them. A yawn worked its way out of my mouth, though I covered it with a hand.

"Are you alright?" a feminine foreign voice questioned. Looking over, I caught sight of Kartika looking at me. Her book was in her lap, and her hands were folded over the book. Kartika is of average height, roughly five six or so. Brown hair, eyes, and tan skin that easily showed her heritage. A blue shirt and pencil skirt with high heels completes the picture.

"Just tired." I rumbled. "I was run ragged yesterday," almost literally, "and I missed out on a couple hours of sleep." I shrugged minutely. "I'm the Autobot Ambassador, I'm not expected to sleep normally like the soldiers and such do." I drawled. "So, Miss Ndari, how are you today?"

She beamed up at me with white teeth. "I am doing good, very good today, Miss Nightstrider. Please, call me Kartika. I'm not into all this formal stuff."

"Alright." I agreed. "I'll call you Kartika if you drop the 'Miss' stuff." Shifting myself so I relaxed against the wall, I felt my hydraulics shift and squeak. I heard Yl'svorica and Jose start arguing quietly to them selves. I guess they hoped that a super advanced alien robot would not be able to hear them. "Hey," I drawled, "Can you please not argue? I can indeed here you, you know. I can hear you as if you're talking in my audio receptor… err… Ear, rather." Human words, I got to remember humans don't know our slang and words.

"Then stop listening." Yl'svorica snapped. "You Robots have been nothing but rude since I got here."

Shifting, I stared at her and grunted. Yl'svorica is tall, dark haired and dark eyed. Her skin is pale, and she has frowning wrinkles. A snobby suit completed the look of Russian bitch for her. "Miss Slastinia, please do not lie and insult my kind like that. Your comment was out of line, and could cause problems later on for us if your current attitude should continue."

"See?" She bitched. "They're all monotone. They aren't alive, these so called 'aliens' are just controlled by people."

Pressing a hand to my nose I sighed. "God give me patience, because if I ask for strength, I'm gonna squash her bitch ass." I murmured to myself. "Okay, here's the deal. The meeting has not started yet, as not everyone has arrived. We're missing Charlotte Mearing, Kureno, and some other woman from Greece that I don't know." I stated. "Until everyone is here, I am going to request that anything rude be left unsaid. Isn't one of Walt Disney's movies, Bambie I believe, that says, 'if you have nothing nice to say, then don't say anything at all.'"

Jose snorted, drawing my gaze to him. "She sure told you _perra_. Dont get your gears in a bunch, _Noche Strider_, we'll behave for now." Jose was average height for his heritage. Dark hair, eyes and skin were easily identifyable. Black pants and a blue polo shirt completed his look.

I snorted as i remembered a phrase my grandma had offten told people she didnt like. _Beso mi culo_. In spanish, that meant kiss my ass. Yl'svorica let out a stangled angry noise. "Dont you speak for me you Spanish cu-"

"Hey!" I barked. "I would advise listening to the giant robot that could accidently fall and squash you flat." Clamping her jaw shut with obvious strain, Yl'svorica settled back to glower at me.

James let out an amused snort, but fell silent hwen Jose sent him a glower. Kartika broke out in chuckles. "Ah, _Setiawati Utari Wulon_, you really do amuse me." Tilting my head in her direction, I trilled a question. "It means Faithful Pateint Moon. Fitting, I beleive."

I nodded to her. "Of course." Looking towards the door as I heard it slide open, three people strolled in. Mearing was there, Kureno, and I caught sight of a short girl. She was roughly maybe five foot two, and was a not at all anorexic looking. She had meat on her bones.

"Strider darling!" Kureno called. He walked across the room to stop by my leg. He was in tight pants, a polka dotted shirt, and a man-purse that was neon pink and green was hanging from his shoulder. "How have you been?"

"Good." I smiled at him. Letting my hands drop down, I offered one to Kureno and the two women. "Please, let me help you up. Yl'svorica is quite ready to get on with the meeting."

Mearing grimaced at me but sat on my palm anyway. Kureno joined her, and the other lady went to my other hand. When I set the two that had been on one hand down, I brought the short girl up to my face. "Hello."

"Hi." She blurted. "I'm Alexandra Rhouth, the Ambassador for Greece. Nice to meet you." She was dressed pretty informally, and had a bright blue streak of hair that stuck up and ran back through her hair like a skunk stripe. Her hands settled in the pockets of her jeans.

"Likewise, Alexandra." I nodded. Moving her to the place with the other humans, I rolled myself up and settled in front of it.

"Oh great." I heard Yl'svorica grunt. "Now we have a gay oriental gentleman, and a short girl. Are we all here?"

Alexandra's face seemed to turn a purplish red color. "I'm not short! _Baciare il mio culo_!" This started an argument between the Ambasadors from Greece, Russia, and Spain.

I found my palm on my face. Great... an Italian speaking Greek. This is supposed to be a peaceful meeting, not a war of the races. Settling myself upward, I inhaled deeply. Then I exhaled and blared my car horn for a couple seconds. They stopped and covered their ears as the sound reverberated off the walls. It even hurt my audio receptors.

"Now," I stated, "Lets sit down and talk civily."


	71. Hakuna Matata

(_**I know, I know- I've been gone too long! I've been busy, and as you heard last chapter, dealing with funeral arrangements. Lots of grief up here on the ranch… I want to thank you all for your condolences, for each one brings a smile to my face.**_

_**Regardless, I trailed off from the last chapter because it would have been the same thing that was discussed with Charlotte Mearing in chapter 67.**_

_**So, to hopefully make up for my absence, we have some adorable fluff in this chapter! GIBTH, I've noticed, does not really have a lot of fluff in it :/ so I decided to write some! It's supposed to be light hearted, as I needed to write something as such in the recent depression at our ranch. It gives me a small beacon of hope, you know, so please, don't mind it. We only have a couple more chapters to go before I do another time skip to the third movie.**_

_**Anyone who wants to go back through the chapters and tell me which ones have even the slightest bit of fluff in them would be greatly appreciated!**_

_**Also if you catch the slight foreshadowing, then yay! Say what you think it is in your review, and I might tell you if you're right!**_

_**So black Friday, my mother dragged me out shopping. It was insane. There was a brawl in the Target clothing department over a pair of what I think were pink panties, and in wall-mart, some chick pepper sprayed oodles of folks so she could get an X-box 360 on sale… :/ what has our world come too? Also, I got bit by a five year old because I picked up the last Bruno Mars CD… little munchkins are mean, I tell ya'!**_

_**Quote of the day: Playing Dead is useful for tricking bears, but most people don't know that it's also very useful for important meetings too.**_

_**Enjoy the chapter!**_)

"Well," I drawled, "it seems like you're coming along nicely in your pregnancy, Chromia." In my right hand I held a small booklet that had scrawls of my findings for this visit on it. My left hand traveled across the dome of her stomach as she lay on the medical bed that I borrowed from Ratchet. Actually, I had kind of just announced that I was stealing this room for an hour, to which Ratchet had said that it was nice I asked. Anyways, according to my knowledge in my memory files, she was a little larger then expected, but that wouldn't cause too much problems. The only real problem would be if the sparkling's helm is to large to fit through her cervix, due to it being her first pregnancy, from where in I would have to go through and stretch it to fit with my hands.

If that doesn't work, I would have to remove plating and deliver it via cesarean section. The sparkling is probably just much larger, seeing as both Chromia and Arcee are about four feet smaller then Elita is, or it would at least appear to be anyways. Maybe it's all fluid. "I'd say that you're due sometime in February, with how big you are." Pulling my hand back, I scrawled the suspected date down in the notebook, which my twins have lovingly dubbed the 'baby book'. "I wouldn't be surprised if you have a behemoth baby."

Ironhide gave an amused rumble, "That'll be my mechling for you." He shifted in his seat on the other side of his sparkmate.

Chromia was quick and she sent a sharp smack to Ironhide's right arm cannon. Ironhide chuckled again as he ran a hand over the spot she hit, as if it actually hurt him. "It's going to be a femme, and you know it. Isn't that right NightStrider?"

I snorted and subspaced the notepad. "I'd say to go with mother's intuition, because that always trumps a fathers intuition." Standing from my seat on the other side of Chromia, I stretched and popped my joints. "I think that's a rap for this appointment. When do you want the next one?"

Ironhide scooped his sparkmate up and gently set her on her feet. "I think sometime in January will be fine. Are you exited for the human holiday, Christmas?" which was in about a week, and I'm totally exited for it. I've been in a good mood the last couple days, humming the occasional Christmas carol or song. I even hung garland up in the bot's quarters, though I had to have human help because it got stuck in my gears and I couldn't get it out. "We hadn't had the chance to talk to you about how the ambassadors meeting went ether."

The meeting went well, with the ambassadors. Well… it went well enough I think.

"You betcha!" I chirped. Leaning a hand on my hip and cocking it to the side, I settled down to talk briefly. "I've gotten the gifts I needed for everyone, and the day after tomorrow, Sam and Mikaela are coming up for Christmas." Drumming my fingers across my armor, I blinked. I did have everything, and it was wrapped in big boxes and tucked underneath my desk in my and the twin's room. "Everything went well for the most part, except that the ambassador from Spain is currently undecided. He said he'd contact me when he was ready to renegotiate. Yl'svorica, the woman from Russia, was incredibly difficult to deal with, but we have her support. The others pretty much were easily dealt with, although Alexandra, from Greece, proved to be a little hot headed if you made any relevance to height." I sighed and gave my helm a small shake. "Humans really are such fickle creatures." I would know; I used to be one.

"They are young," Chromia said. "They have much to grow and learn, much like we do too."

"Ah, I guess your right."

Ironhide pressed a kiss to her helm, "My Mia is almost always right."

"Almost, hm?" Chromia quirked an eyebrow plating at him. Her hand came to her hip as mine had. Ah, I know where this is going. Horny mother Cybertronian sex. Yuck. Already walked into that once, and once was defiantly enough. Ick… Just remembering it makes me get shivers and awkward feelings up my spinal strut.

"Oi," I drawled, "before you two get your whoopee on, let me leave, and remember, let Chromia be on top, Ironhide. Your bulk could squash the sparkling."

"Whoopee?" Ironhide repeated. Chromia let out an undignified snort of amusement.

"Yeah. Whoopee. Also known as the dirty tango, slimy samba, getting your freak on, the wet banana, sex, and countless other's I'm not going to name." I paused for a moment. "Old mech, you really need to surf the web more. Incase you still don't know what I'm yammering on about, try interfacing."

Ironhide rumbled at me. "Old mech my aft…"

Chromia patted his thigh gently, a soft ringing sound emanating from metal on metal contact. "Oh, love, your not an old mech, you're my mech. But… you can show me how young you are when you-"

My hands clapped over my audios. "Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah! Innocent ears here, keep it in the bed room!"

"We haven't even started yet!" Ironhide snorted at me.

"La la la, I'm not listening!"

Ironhide cuffed me gently over the head with a resounding clang that made my little horn audio things vibrate back and forth, and made my antenna bounce like rubber ducks. As I rubbed my helm with a laugh, he huffed at me. "Bratling."

"Only to you old mechs." I snorted. "Now, I'll see you all later." I turned and waved with one hand as I strode out. "Let Ratchet know if you're going to need it for longer then the remaining ten minutes."

…

After spending an hour harassing Skids and Mudflap over the fact that I caught them snooping for Christmas presents, I decided I would go look for my twins. I found them chilling in a small outside spot that is hidden from human sight. It's kind of like a back ally, but no human windows, and it's a dead end. It's a good place to just go and chill for a little bit, seeing as we cleaned it up for that exact purpose. It had been filled with gross stuff that was rotting and fermenting; garbage, furniture, bugs, and what I believe was shit and baby diapers.

Tucking my claws in completely, I treaded as silently as a giant robot can over the pavement. I totally failed, and got spotted and waved at. Grinning, I paced to them and threw my arms over their shoulders in a three-way hug. Sunstreaker gave me a loving rumble like purr, and Sidewipe gave me a chirp. They looped their arms over my waist, pretty much making it look like I have two different colored stripes on my body. Gentle thumbs stroked fondly at the metal over my hips.

"Someone sure has been cheery," Sunstreaker commented. Up close, I could see the various plates that made up his face. One was quirked up, his version of an eyebrow raised, and giving me a curious look. Blue optics glittered and rotated at me, the gears and millions of tiny parts that make it up whirring and twirling in a strange hypnotic dance.

Leaning back, I flashed them a wide grin, "Well duh! It's almost Christmas! Aren't you curious as to what I got you?"

Sideswipe chuckled at me. Cerulean optics twinkled merrily at me as Sideswipe flashed metal teeth at me in a grin. "Of course Princess, are you curious as to what we got you?"

I nodded. "Yeah."

"Good." Sunstreaker flashed me a half grin, which on him was incredibly sexy, and fluttered his ear fins a couple times. "Because you're coming on a date with us tonight so we can give you an early gift."

"Oh?" I drawled, my antenna and door wings twitching in an amused way. "I am, am I? So nice of you to ask."

Sideswipe planted a kiss on the side of my cheek plates. Then he leaned over and whispered secretively in my audio receptor. "He meant to add please."

I rumbled with a chuckle. "I know. So, when do we leave?"

"Soon," Sunstreaker chuckled at me. "Impatient aren't you?" His arms snaked around me and smoothly pulled me into a sandwich between the two mechs. I grinned. They always had a silky way of dealing with things and moving me between the two. Always so careful not to scratch their paintjobs.

"Me? Never." I said. Leaning back against Sideswipe, who was positioned behind me, I sighed comfortably. "So, what do you think I got you for Christmas?"

Sideswipe thrummed against me. "Oh, I don't know…"

Sunstreaker gave me a lecherous grin. "You in protoform, gleaming in sexy silver glory on our berth? Or you in one of those things, what the humans call a Dominatrix or something of the other."

I snorted. Of course, that would be Sunstreaker for you. Leave it to him to make some comment on something sexual or otherwise… Dominatrix; well I guess since my armor is black, though flamed, it might work for that… nah; I'm not the type for being a dominatrix. "That'll have to be after the wedding boys; other wise yes, that's what it would be. Seriously, dominatrix? That's a little bit kinky isn't it boys? But seriously, what do you think?"

"Oh… I suppose maybe something sentimental. Maybe some interesting bumper stickers?" They said.

I snorted. They weren't even close.

…

I sat in my alt mode, idling just outside of the base compound. It's around ten o'clock at night, and quite dark. The twins said that they would be here soon, or at least Sunstreaker would be. Sideswipe, I had been informed, was going ahead to make some last minute adjustments to anything that needs fixed.

Speaking of yellow Diablo, here he comes now. Sunstreaker rounded a corner, speeding towards me. Pulling a nice stunt on the empty street, Sunstreaker glided to a stop just next to me. I revved my engine playfully, getting a purr from his in return.

'_You ready to go Babe_?' He comm. linked me.

'_Yeah, lead the way_.' Shifting myself into two-wheel drive, more for the city then four-wheel drive is, I braked so that I didn't roll forward.

'_On it Babe._' I watched as Sunstreaker rolled forward and sped off in front of me.

I snorted in amusement, but gunned my engine to keep up. After all, I'm not built for speed; I'm built a bit stockier for close combat and for being able to take a hit or two. My tires gripped the road nicely, and I trucked along a little bit behind Sunstreaker.

He rounded a corner out into the D.C traffic, and I swerved to follow. We played a bit of tag in the traffic, weaving in and out. I scared an older lady when she almost rear-ended me; she tapped me in the aft but only dented her own car. I scared the woman by playing a very loud alarm, or more specifically the part of the car alarm that sounds like 'fuck you'.

Sunstreaker lead me down another road, one less populated. We raced a little bit, just enjoying ourselves, occasionally cutting one another off and causing what could look like road rage. It was kind of a miracle that we didn't get pulled over by the cops. When he got us out of the city, into an actually country area where absolutely no one was on the roads, we raced. I have the feeling that he was humoring me, because he stays just a few inches in front of my bumper the whole time. Just out of reach of me nosing him in the ass, but close enough to tempt me to do just that. Truly a master at driving torture Sunstreaker is.

He started slowing down, so in turn I myself had to slow down. When he was down way below the legal speed, I was beginning to wonder if something was wrong when Sunstreaker suddenly turned to the right. He slipped off the road and into the night, the only sign that he was out there was the high beams of his headlights. I turned after him, slipping smoothly into fourth gear as soon as my tires hit the soft dry dirt. My headlights followed Sunstreaker's shiny golden butt, and it was easy for me to keep up with him in the dark in an off road area.

A little while later, we pulled in front of this mass of trees that were taller then Optimus. Big ass trees in my opinion, really they are. Sunstreaker slowed down, and then stopped completely. He then transformed, and I watched him for a second before initiating my own transformation sequence.

When I stood along with him, Sunstreaker took my hand gently and tugged me into the trees after giving me a short and sizzling kiss. "We're almost there." He murmured to me.

"We really came far out didn't we?"

He cast me a thoughtful smile, one that I returned. "If we wanted to transform, then we would have had to come out this far. Or, stay in that ally we cleared out. I hope you didn't mind the drive here." He said.

I blinked slowly at him, "It's fine, and I didn't mind the drive. It's nice to get away from base once and a while, especially if it's with the two of you."

"We're here." Sunstreaker motioned with his spare hand, and my gaze followed.

In front of us was a grove of trees, open to the stars at the top, and covered in soft green grass. A large tarp like blanket was laid out, three cubes of high grade on it. Behind the blanket was a large dimly lit lantern, providing only enough light to see within ten feet, but casting out a small glow against the trees. At the edge of the clearing were several small candles, situated so there was no fire hazard, but to where they cast a glow back towards the center. Sideswipe was seated on one side of the blanket, leaving the middle and other half free. In intermittent patches, there were bundles of flowers that were wild and free growing.

The trees arched up like a great hollow green iceberg, branches intertwined and tightly woven into intricate designs. A couple nocturnal animals were scampering around in the branches; bats, the occasional squirrel, and a raccoon or two. Also, my optics caught the gleam of garland woven in the trees, and a couple ornaments tossed in here and there. The occasional lit light strand was seen, but how they lit it up, I will never know. I heard no generator, but there could be one far, far away.

I smiled a soft smile as Sunstreaker lead me to the blanket. Sideswipe helped me get seated, and then Sunstreaker followed, seating himself down after.

"Good evening Princess," Sideswipe purred. He gently handed me my high-grade cube and gave me a sweet kiss.

"Good evening Sidesiwpe." I said. "This place is beautiful you two."

"So you like your gift then?" They questioned.

"Of course." I nodded and took a drink of high-grade. I wasn't too sure what it was, but if it was a night with them, peaceful and away from everyone else, then I'll be fine with it.

"Good." Sunstreaker nodded. He took a drink of his own high-grade before continuing. "We believed you needed a night of peace and quiet-"

"-Where no one is going to bother us, and where you can relax and unwind. Leave all responsibility behind, and just chill. Like the in the Disney movie, the quote hakuna matata." Sideswipe finished.

Oh, my goobers. Such love able goobers. "I love it." I said. I leaned my helm to the side and rested it on Sideswipe's shoulder. My spare hand went and claimed Sunstreaker's. "I don't think I'll have any problems relaxing tonight."

Soft words and kisses were shared for hours after, until we fell asleep in a buzzed daze under the starry sky and candle lit warmth. It was peaceful, serene.

Certainly Hakuna Matata.


	72. No Better Gift Then Family

(_**Hello dear readers, I'm glad you could be here today to read this skipping to the christmasness! This can count as the Christmas interlude I guess, since I don't feel like making one this month. Anyways, enjoy! It's short, sweet, and too the point! Well, okay, it isn't short, but it's sweet and has awesome gifts that have had me thinking and questioning friends and family members for three weeks now! The one to Ratchet, you'll know the special one, was one that was inspired by a dream I had of him dancing with said gift.**_

_**Ugh, my body's sore… Forestry is murder! Oh, and sorry updates aren't as fast as before, my buttweiner science teacher has us working like slaves over grass. Yeah, I said grass.**_

_**The next big event is coming up like a fast approaching bullet train!**_

_**QUESTION FOR EVERYONE TO ANSWER: How much of a Mary-sue is NightStrider?**_)

When I opened my optic shutters at seven on December Twenty fifth and found Sideswipe grinning down at me, I remembered that today was Christmas morning. Oh yes, I had put the gifts out under the massive tree the night before, including the last minute gifts I had done. Thank god for the government giving us 'Christmas bonus's'. As it turns out, my Papa makes a good tree hauler, no matter how disgruntled he got about some of the human's and Ironhide's wisecracks. The tree, now erect in the main hanger, stands about twenty feet up. It's bitch'n, especially all decked out in garland, bulbs, and the obnoxiously bright star at the top. Anyways, everyone is here, Sam, Mikaela, and Sara and Annabelle Lennox. Even Ron and Judy are here, along with Wheelie.

I also got a gift for Leo; or rather I made it. I hacked the Internet and taught myself how to crochet. Using these tiny needle hook things I had Lennox fetch me from a store and the countless balls of yarn I also had him get, I used my super advanced robot abilities to crochet a big blue and black blanket for Leo with a tiny Autobot symbol on the corner… Okay, so I set myself on autopilot and took a nap while I did, but it's the thought that counts! That, and I hope Leo likes it… I had so much yarn tangled up in my wires it wasn't even funny! I also made a much smaller one for Annabelle in a bright black and pink color, and did another large one in baby blue and black for a present to Chromia for her sparkling. They've all been wrapped in nice Santa wrapping paper and jumbo boxes.

A smile stretched over my face. "Good morning." Sideswipe rumbled, pressing a gentle kiss to my lips.

"Mmhmm. Good morning to you too." I responded. Sunstreaker moved behind me, his fingers starting to rub circles on my stomach plattings that sent little shivers through my wires and circuits. "And to you too, golden boy." I nudged him.

He gave me a grumble and buried his face in the back of my neck, his hands clinging to me sleepily. "Too early, wake me in three hours." His words vibrated through my chassis, and Sunstreaker exhaled hot air gently into the cables of my neck.

"Mmm," I purred, "but if I did that, then we would miss the gifts and holiday cheer." I mused aloud. "I think you both will like what I got you, since it's something that I know you will like."

I felt Sunstreaker's ear fins twitch against me. "Oh?" the vibrations of his voice tickled my armor. Sideswipe then chuckled at what his brother must have sent him. "You know what Sideswipe? Bah humbug." Sunstreaker grouched, enticing a round of laughter from Sideswipe.

"Sometimes I'm so lost between the two of you." I mused once more. With their whole, twin bond speak thing, they seem to send things that make me curious.

"Then we best get up!" Sideswipe chirped cheerfully. He pried me from the yellow leach that was attached to my backside, and then helped me stand with groans from our joints. Sunstreaker lay there, grumping about getting up so early. Sideswipe draped an arm around my waist and let me lean on him.

"If you don't get up," I cooed, "then I'll let Sideswipe have your present."

He sighed at me while his brother snickered at him. "Only for you, Femme, only for you." He rolled over and stood himself up blearily. A hand came up to rub his optics as he moved to join us.

"Ooh!" Sideswipe chirped, "You shouldn't have called her that brother!"

"Femme?" I asked incredulously. "Streaker, Streaker, I thought we had this conversation back when I was a youngling. My name isn't Femme." He merely sent me an apologetic comm. Link, and grunted as he wrapped his arm around my waist. "Alright then Scrooge, lets head out shall we?"

Neither twin said anything, and just very simply led me out the door and towards the other end of the base, where undoubtedly by the absent sounds of bot's in their rooms everyone was gathered.

Now, while we walk to our destination, you must be wondering what went on during the time between now and the twins and my date. Well, not much to be honest. I crocheted, did some more paper work, helped pick out the Christmas tree and attach it to Papa's back end. I also managed to cut off my pinky, and was then taught how to use the laser scalpel by Ratchet since that's what I cut my pinky off with. No worries though, my pinky was reattached and is fully functional.

As for the whole tree thing, with the wise cracks and all, one of the human's favorite was 'Nice wood Prime!'. Yeah, that's just a little awkward, especially when Papa asked what they meant by wood. I'm not explaining, if you don't know what it is, then try Google. With Google, you can find anything and everything, except what you're looking for.

Regardless, we're entering the main hanger now. Everyone was there, gathered around the tree for the early morning gift opening. Optimus, Elita, and Leo were on the right of the tree, along with Ratchet who was lounged against the wall of the hanger. The humans were seated upon three large couches that were strategically placed so they wouldn't get stepped on. The Lennox's were on one couch, adult Witwicky's on another with Epps, and Sam and Mikaela on the last. The rest of the bot's were sporadically standing around the tree in clusters.

"There you are!" Mikaela called. "We were wondering if we needed to send Prime to fetch you!" She waves us over.

I snorted in amusement and guided my twins over. They paused and shoed me over so they could go say something to Ironhide. After carefully weaving through the standing Autobot clusters, I then squatted next to the three couches. Annabelle let out a happy squeal and waved her arms at me.

"Stwider!" She cried. "Uppie!"

"Anne!" Sara scolded. "You have to say please!" Sara sighed as Will scooped up Anne and said something to her in a conspiring whisper. Looking up at me, Sara laughed. "Sorry about that Nightstrider, Annabelle's going through the 'uppie' stage where she wants to be held all the time."

I rumbled in an amused tone. "No problem Sara, I understand what your saying." Of course, I had gone through those too when I was little. Tilting my head I waved at Ron and Judy. "Hello."

"You've grown bigger since the last time I saw you!" Judy called. She had a cup of eggnog in her hand. "Last time I saw you, you were about, what, teen foot shorter and dead!" Ron gave her a smack gently on the shoulder, and I saw Sam cover his face with his hands and sink low in the couch. There was an awkward silence.

After I had died, it had pretty much become a taboo to speak of it; after all, the child of Prime dieing was no small feet. I guess maybe they thought it was a sore subject with me? I don't know. Regardless, I don't see what the whole deal was, and whenever it came up, as I usually brought it up, I ended up breaking the silence one way or another.

Dryly, but in an unbothered tone, I commented, "Who let her have the eggnog?"

Just like that, the silence was broken. Everyone went back to previous conversations, what ever they were. Mikaela let out a snort and I directed my attentions to the two of them on the couch. Reaching down gently, I scooped them up in my palms, which earned me indignant squawks.

"Heya fleshlings," I joked, "Don't I get my hugs?" I brought them up to my faceplates and smiled at them.

Mikaela wrapped her arms around my face, and I made sure she didn't get pinched in any of the plate breaks. "Good to see you Strider!" She said. "You've gotten much bigger huh?"

I snorted slightly as she switched places with Sam, who gave me a short awkward one armed face hug. "You bet." I let them down back on the couch. "Or," I quirked an eyebrow in amusement, "Maybe you got smaller!"

"As if!" Sam scoffed at me. Then he motioned towards the tree, "Well, aren't we going to open presents? Isn't that why we're here?"

I stood upright. "Alright, we'll start." I agreed. I clapped my hands. "Hey! Gather around now, we're going to start opening presents!" I announced loudly.

They clustered even tighter as I moved to sit next to the tree. I would hand out gifts so there wasn't any hullabaloo or accidents involving smashed humans and flesh stuck in gears. As I plopped down next to the tree, I set my sights on the first present I saw. The one I got for Sam.

"Alright, Sam," I drawled, "this one's for you." Plucking it up carefully, since it was in a much smaller box, I passed it to the boy. Lennox winked at me, for he had wrapped it for me and therefore knew what it was.

Sam tore into the paper and through the box as we all watched, some with anticipation, amusement, and boredom. As he pulled out his gift, his face turned an alarming purple color. "Uh-uh-wah?" He sputtered. In his hands was a leopard print man thong with the Autobot symbol over the junk covering and a pair of navy blue fuzzy handcuffs.

"You and Mikaela can make some use with that!" I crowed. He blushed more. I sent him an amused look and grabbed the next gift. It was something for Sara from Ironhide. "Sara, Old softie, err, Ironhide got you a present!" I gently passed it to her and grabbed for the next, a bot sized package. I couldn't find the label on top, so I searched by gently flipping the box this way and that. "Okay, whoever did the one with the Frosty the snowman wrapping forgot to list who it's for." I announced.

Lennox piped up. "That's for Jolt from Epps and I."

"Thanks Ironhide!" Sara called. In her hand waved a wall-mart gift card for a hundred bucks. I handed Jolt his present, and he started to carefully open it. "I always need these! Wall-mart's the store where I can find everything!"

Ironhide chuckled. "I know, Sara, remember, I have helped you load home your human things many a time."

I snagged another box. "Elita!" I called. "This is for you from Optimus." She passed Leo over to Optimus and then retrieved the gift from me, giving me a hug at the same time.

"Thank you." Jolt said. In his hands, I noticed, were pretty much scaled up versions of megablasting water guns.

"We figured that since you have those kick ass electric whips, why not add a little water to make 'em more potent?" Epps grinned. It made sense in a way. "Glad you like 'em dude. Ratchet can hook them up for you later."

I found one for Ratchet next, and looked for the tag though I think I recognized the wrapping. Ah yes, this was the one that the little twins, several soldiers, and myself chipped in to get for him. "Ratchet!" I tossed it towards him. It wasn't breakable at all. "This is from the nest soldiers, Skids and Mudflap, and myself."

He caught it and gave it a suspicious look before starting to unwrap it. Elita let out a happy noise and, while careful of Leo, gave Optimus a kiss. In her hands was an oversized version of Romeo and Juliet. I hated that book, but as it's a personal choice, I cant say shit.

Scooping up the next gift, a small human one, I grinned. "Mikaela, this is for you from me!" I handed it to her and then scooped up another. This was the joint present I, and all the other bots that had been there when they ruined their yard, had put together for Ron and Judy. I handed it to them.

Ratchet let out a bark of laughter. "Really now? You get me a seven foot tall _Naruto_ doll?" In his hands was a life sized plush toy of Naruto himself. It had taken some serious string pulling, but we had gotten it done and made. "I love it."

Mikaela held up Autobot earrings and dog tags with it on them. She grinned. "I love them!" I and the other bots got grins from Sam's parents as they opened the gift. In it was grass seeds, a small fountain, and baby rosebushes. An apology for the ruined yard all those years ago.

A gift to the little twins from literally everyone was handed to them. It was in a large gift bag, so they simply pulled it open. They pulled out two dictionaries, one with each of their names on the cover. "Yo, we's gots more words ta learn!" Skids had exclaimed. Mudflap was already trying to read the words within his book.

"Quiet ya _imb-ba-cile_." Mudflap sounded out. "I'm try'n ta read here!"

…

Over the course of several hours, gifts were handed out at random between soldiers and bots, of course I was the one to fetch them If I found one of my gifts from someone else, I set it aside to open in a little bit along with some of the gifts I wanted to others after I had handed out the littler gifts and stuff. I'll summarize the gifts given by the bots and close humans, because there were too many soldiers to count all their gifts. Sara got more gift cards to wall-mart, Will and Epps got dog tags though Will got a thong and handcuffs too while Epps got some books, Wheeljack got some science kits, Annabelle loves her blanket that I crocheted her.

Prowl got a large Chicken Soup For The Soul book. I wonder how many glitches he'll get. Jazz got a pile of different CD's. Bumblebee got a couple I-tunes gift cards seeing as he liked to go and buy songs to play at random. Ironhide got books of weapons and other things that he can ogle and get more ideas for our type of advanced weaponry from them.

Everyone has cleared out, save my twins, my parents and Leo, and Ironhide and Chromia, and Ratchet. I'm still seated on the floor, but everyone else had joined me and was now sitting in a loose circle. "Alright," Ratchet grumped. "Why did you keep us here?"

"Well," I grinned. "For you all, I have gifts that I figured would be a bit more privately opened, though Ratchet's isn't that private." Pulling Ratchets from the pile next to me, I handed it to him and then grabbed the one he gave me.

Ratchet peeled open my gift to him, and then chuckled. He pulled out a four-foot foam half yellow half red Lamborghini and squeezed it. "A stress ball." He chuckled. "Fitting. Now open yours, and don't worry, I'll install it later."

"Alright." I peeled it open, setting wrapping down and stuff. Inside was a cylinder shape with a familiar set of buttons on it. "A laser?" I questioned. "Sweet!"

"Fitting, since that's the one you severed your pinky with." He mused. "Regardless, now that you know how to use one, I'll install it later." Then he stood and waved. "I bid you all good night." And walked away.

I frowned after him but set down the laser scalpel. I passed the Twin's gifts to them, and then took their gift for me out. We unwrapped in silence. Then I let out a chuckle. "Wax and a buffer; I like it. You guys get to help me."

"You bet." They said. Their optics lit up simultaneously and they grinned. "Art supplies!" They sent me comm. Links that promised a loving thank you in a more private area.

"I thought you all could use some better stuff." I said cheekily. Turning to Chromia and Ironhide, I grabbed their gift. Sliding it to them, I sat back and smiled. "Go for it."

Chromia unwrapped it, taking her time in pulling out the baby blue and black blanket. She smiled and gently touched the yarn as a smile lit up Ironhide's faceplates. "She's to happy to speak," he rumbled to me, "So I'll say it for both of us. Thank you."

"No problem." I smiled. I turned and grabbed the last two presents. Since Optimus and Elita sat across from me, I stretched across to them and scooted their gifts. "These are for the both of you to open." Giving Elita a sly look, I said, "And since you'll need both hands for this, I think I'll just relieve you of your bundle." I snagged Leo Gently and scooted back. Cradling him to my chassis with one arm, I let him hold one of my other fingers. He gnawed happily on it. "Merry Christmas." I said cheekily.

Elita's optics watered happily as she set to opening the present I set in front of her. She drew out the blanket I had made for Leo, fingering it fondly. "Nightstrider, these are the best gifts you could have given us."

"Papa, open the other one." I encouraged.

He rumbled at me in amusement and love. "Alright sweetspark." His large hands tore into the paper and easily removed the box. In his hands remained a large book. He flipped it open, revealing pictures and words on what happened in them. The last hundred pages were blank, for them to add more as they saw fit. "We love it." He breathed. "Everything is wonderful, my daughter."

"I'm glad." I smiled. Leo gurgled in my arms, making a sound that sounded like a burbling version of 'sissy'. I'm just imagining thing. I have to be.

"We think you'll like your gift." My parents said. "It's in your room, so don't worry when you walk in and see your old berth gone."

Elita's optics shined and twinkled with love and mirth. "We figured that you'd both need a bigger berth in a few months."

"So we got a larger one made for you." My papa finished. "Also, I wanted to wish you the best, or as the humans say, give you my blessing for your marriage."

I smiled. "There's no better gift then family." I said. "Merry Christmas."


	73. For Whom The Bell Tolls

(_**Hiya folks. Been some time eh? Regardless, looks like a big event is here! Now, if you want me to do an actual sex scene after this chapter, that is well… more smutty then what I plan on writing, then please, let me know via review.**_

_**Well, it wouldn't be too graphic. I'm too young to write hardcore smut, and this is not a smut story. I'm technically too young to even read such things, let alone write them. Lets play a game! Guess the authress's age!**_

_**Listen to Daddy's Angel by Carter as you read this! It helps, I promise!**_

_**Enjoy!**_)

In my tanks, or stomach I guess, I had the feeling of thousands of butterflies ramming into the sides of it. It was an excited but also slightly nauseating feeling. I'm exited, nervous, and thrilled. A real emotional mess if you will. Today is my wedding day, and it's taking place here at base. Our preacher or whatever is Charlotte Mearing, so this should be pleasant. But that's not what has me nervous. The fact that I'm getting married in my robot life when I never experienced it as a human has made this quite nerve racking. It's hard to explain, you'd have to experience it for yourself.

Today its February the fourteenth, a day after my human birthday. At the beginning of last month, we received Que and Red Alert. Que is all right, a little strange, but Red Alert is a freaking spaz. He's worse then Sam, and that's saying something. Always muttering about sneak attacks, bombs, and all other sorts of nonsense. Que also came with a little friend, Brains, who went to live with Sam and Mikaela to keep Wheelie company.

Anyways, I was decked out in giant metal high heels, like stilettos if you will. Sara Lennox, of whom I did not know could weld, and spray painted them a white-silver color and had welded them together with some stray scrap. It was under the advisement that 'every girl deserves heels on their wedding day. I thought it was sweet, but I sure as fuck cant walk in these that well. I had biffed it the first time I had tried, and broke one of the military tanks. I couldn't even wear these as humans, let alone a giant robot. I also had a long black skirt thing that was tied at my waist. It ended at my feet, covering the stiletto shoes and my feet. Apparently she wanted to give me the most human wedding I could have.

I can hear a rock version of Cannon D starting, played by some gigantic stereos. I know that in the area where all the dancing would occur, that two cakes were stationed as well. Apparently Ratchet makes a mean Oil Cake, or something like that, and then a large cake for the human part of my wedding was there as well. "Papa." I said nervously. "Don't let me fall." My arm was wrapped in his, or as far as I could anyway with our height difference.

"Never." He said to me. Through the bond I felt love and assurance pulse at me, along with pride. "You look wonderful, sweetspark." With the other Femme's help, I had been washed thoroughly and waxed. Papa pulled me in for a hug. As he gently crushed me to his chassis, going so far as to lift me off the ground, Optimus let out a small noise from his vocal processor as he rested his chin on the top of my helm. "I don't want to let you go." He said. "It hasn't been long enough for me. I don't think it would ever be long enough for me to give my sparkling away to a mech. I wish you had grown slower. My little femme is all grown in such a short time."

"Oh you big softie." I rumbled as he set me down. I set my hand on his arm. "I'll always be your little femme, and you'll always be my one and only Papa." I gave him a smile. "Besides papa, you have Leo now. Raise him well and he'll make a fine mech. Not to say I won't be here of course."

"You better be." He smiled at me, optics twinkling. "I'm so proud of you, my sweetspark. So proud, but still… I don't want to let go."

I held his arm tightly. "Then don't." I could hear the starting sounds start up, the beat of Cannon D Rock style starting out slow. I inhaled shakily, nerves fluttering back. "Papa?"

"Yes?"

"Please, please, _please_ don't let me fall."

"Never, my sweetspark."

The doors in front of us creaked open. I steeled my nerves, clenching my inner cables and muscles to keep myself from collapsing into a pile of nervous Cybertronian femme. Straightening my servos, I stood tall in my heels with Optimus at my side and my arm twined with his. Light peeled through, glinting off of our armor and sending rainbows of light careening through the air and onto other surfaces.

As the doors peeled back fully, all the humans and bots were lined up in large rows. The femmes were in a cluster near the front, followed by random bots, humans, and the such. All of the humans I am close too are near the front as well. My twins were standing at the end of the isle, one on each side, and they had these big shit eating grins on their faces. Sara, the woman is amazing at nearly everything, had taken some of the military funds and went and bought yards and yards of black fabric whish she finagled into ties for all the male bots to wear. So, the twins were standing in front of me with shining armor, and black ties, and my father had a tie too, though his was kind of small on his gargantuan girth. Mearing was on a raised platform, holding a book, and decked out in these long flowing robe things.

There were some flowers placed about, some lace, but nothing else less it get tangled up with one of the bots after our vows. It was not an extravagant wedding, even as a human I would not have wanted one, but to me? Well, it was more then enough. I love it. And I love the mechs I'm going to marry.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm going soft, with all this love and mush that I seem to be faced with… and then I look back at the fact that this is what family is like; love, mush, faith, and trust.

As the beat started to quicken, my Father and I started the march down the isle, him supporting me as my ankle joints buckled a couple times. No one could see though for the cloth wrapped around my waist. It seemed to take an eternity for Optimus and I to reach the end of the isle. When we did, Papa begrudgingly handed my hands over to Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, as the human custom of giving the bride away dictated.

"Take care of her." My Father warned, a rumble sounding through his chest and making his windows rattle.

"Of course." Sideswipe answered.

"We would never harm her intentionally." Sunstreaker added.

Charlotte cleared her throat as the music trailed off. "May we begin?"

Papa nodded and stepped back into line with the other Mechs. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe smiled and moved so they were on one side of Charlotte while I was on the other side. "Of course." I said.

Charlotte coughed briefly and then began. "Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, Primus, or whoever is out there watching us, and in the face of this company, to join together these honorable Men and this Woman in holy Matrimony." She read on ahead breifly, reading aloud some random shit that just rabbled about god. "Okay, I'm skipping bundle of blathering shit because it's too damn long.

"Sideswipe," She adressed the mech. "will you have this Woman to your wedded wife, to live together after Primus or God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, and," she paused and arched an eyebrow at the book. "keep your 'cherry picker' only for her and her alone, so long as you both shall live?" There was a small chuckle from the smaller twins in the back.

"I do." He answered. "Always."

She nodded. "Sunstreaker, "will you have this Woman to your wedded wife, to live together after Primus or God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Will you love her, comfort her, honor, and keep her in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, and keep your," her eyebrow twitched, " 'yellow hot rod banana' only for her and her alone, so long as you both shall live?"

"Of course."

"Nightstrider," Charlotte said. ""Will you have these men to be your wedded husband, to live together after Primus or God's ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Will you love them, comfort them, honor, and keep them in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all others, and" she sighed. "Who wrote this damn thing? I'm not saying that!" she grumped. "_Keep yourself for them and_ _only them_, so long as you three shall live?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Good, you may say your vows."

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe said theirs at the same time, their words being the exact same things. I have the feeling it was planned to be like that. "Nightstrider, we take you to be our lawfully wedded wife. Before these witnesses we both vow to love you and care for you as long as we three shall live. We take you with all your faults and your strengths as we also offer ourselves to you with all of our faults and strengths. We will help you when you need help, and we will turn to you when we too need help. Our very souls choose you as the person with whom we will spend eternity with, in life and death. Only you we shall take, even if we lose you, you will be the only one our sparks will ever merge with, and we hope that if we both leave you early, that you would do the same. In your darkest times, we will be your guiding light, keeping you grounded with us. Your secrets are our secrets."

I smiled a them, love filling my spark. "Now it is your turn to say your vows." Charlotte instructed.

I nodded and inhaled. "I, Nightstrider, take you, Sunstreaker, and you Sideswipe, to be my husbands, my constant friend, my faithful partner and my love from this day forward. In the presence of Primus, our family and friends, I offer you my solemn vow to be your faithful partner in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad, and in joy as well as in sorrow. I promise to love you unconditionally through fights and petty squabbles, to support you in your goals, to honor and respect you, to laugh with you and cry with you, and to cherish you for as long as we three shall live. In the event that one of us is taken from the rest, I would hope that whom ever is left behind will find comfort in each other, as I would. If I am left alone, no other will join my spark, as your own will still occupy my soul. I would hope for you it would be the same as well. I will try my hardest to be a pillar of strength for the both of you, as I would hope you would do for me. Yes, I take the both of you for who you are, vanity, dark sides, deep secrets, everything that you are is welcomed by me. I promise you this from my deepest part of my spark, this is all true."

"Now," Charlotte boomed. "Do you, Cybertronian twins Sideswipe and Sunstreaker, accept Nightstrider's vows?"

"Yes."

"Yes."

"Do you, Cybertronian femme Nightstrider, accept Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's vows?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"If there are no objections," She paused. No one spoke. "Then I now pronounce you Husbands and Wife! You may now snog the bride!" She paused too look at the list. "Wait, snog?"

I smiled and was pulled forward for a mind blowing snogging of a lifetime. Kisses were passed between us, electricity almost so tangible that you could almost see it. Cheers erupted around us. We hugged, and then stepped back. And I smiled at the crowd.

…

After we moved to the area with the cake, and managed to cut the little human cate, we found ourselves standing in front of a giant black cake that was taller then the little twins. It looked kind of spongy, and had an oily smell to it. Taking the knife awkwardly in our hands, me standing in the middle, we cut the cake into three small pieces.

Sideswipe fed me a bite of his, I fed Sunstreaker, and Sunstreaker fed Sideswipe. Oil cake tastes weirder then sparkling energon, but it tastes good too. It is spongey, taking on a very light texture that is rich but pleasant to the tongue. A lot like normal cake really, moist but dry, soft and crumbly but solid as well. A small bit of Energon laced through it in colorful swirls also brought out the flavor of the rich and thick oil.

"That's pretty good." I mused as I swallowed the first bite. I stole another one of Sideswipe's cake bites.

I heared someone tap a micro phone as I swallowed my bite of cake. Lennox cleared his throat. "Okay, so some of you bots might not know this, but it's traditon for the bride to dance with her father. We have the song picked out, so now we just need everyone to clear to the side of the hanger so the bossbot and his little angel can dance the first dance."

"I cant dance!" I murmered to the twins. Sunstreaker smiled at me and flicked his ear fins in amusement. Sideswipe nudged me forward with a tap to the aft.

I sighed and walked carefully forward, careful not to trip on my heels or dress skirt. Humans and bots filed to the edge of the room as Optimus walked forward slowly. We met close to the middle of the dance floor, I took his left hand in my right, stretched it out, and then settled my left hand on his shoulder. His right hand came down to rest on my waist, tightening and pulling me closer to him. Papa smiled kindly down at me and hefted me a little bit higher so I wasn't touching the ground. He set me on his feet, and then we looked to Lennox.

"Ready?" I asked. He was fiddling with a giant sterio system.

"Yes." He answered as he turned a dial. "The question is, are you both ready?"

Optimus nodded. "Yes, William, I do believe that we are ready." He looked at me and winked.

Lennox hit the play button, and a soft violin started, a guitar following after. It was the start of a country song that I swear I could have heard once, and it was sad sounding, making me almost feel like tearing up. Nah. God, I'm turning into such a sap. Anyways, Papa lowered his head down so that it was close to mine and then started to sway side to side and turn in circles.

Then, I heardsomething that did make me tear up, mist making my vision slightly harder to see out of. Papa started murmering softly to me, and only me I think, the lyrics of the song as they played out of the speaker. My fucus went to my father only, and my tention of the crowd watching us waned to nothing. "I'm giving you away, but I'm not letting go. The memories, they flood my mind, of the little girl I know.

"Once upon a time you held my hand so tight. You'd close your eyes and say a prayer. Then I'd kiss your head goodnight."

I hugged him tightly, then continued dancing, my eyes continuing to mist as my audio receptors took in the sound of my father singing to me. This memory would stay with me forever, I know this for sure. If I were to lose every ounce of my being right now, this memory would stick it through, and even if I got my processor switched out, this memory will reside in my spark for all time.

"As we dance I keep our love deep within my heart, and thank God for giving me this angel in my arms…" He murmured to me. We swayed in another circle, my skirt billowing out slowly. A single drop of the fluid that formed as our tears dripped from my eyes, though I willed it not too. "You're my little angel. So baby don't you cry, it's time to spread your wings and fly. If there's one thing this father knows, the hardest part is letting go. But you will still always be… Daddy's little angel_."_

"Oh papa…" I murmured. I rested my head on his shoulder and we swayed around again. Yep, I'm a sap.

"When you were young, I used to laugh at the funny things you'd say. Right now I just can't help but smile… On this blessed day." Optimus swooped me up in a sweep and then he continued the simple swaying beat we had done before.

"You're my little angel, so baby don't you cry. It's time to spread your wings and fly. If there's one thing this father knows the hardest part is letting go… But you will still always be… Daddy's little angel." Papa hummed to me. He pressed a quick fatherly kiss to my helm.

I hummed the next violin set with my father, and then let him finish it. "I'm giving you away, but I'm not letting go." He said to me. The bond flared to life with love again, and then dwindled down as he let me go. As the song trailed off, I smiled up at him and wiped my optics as he set me on the floor again.

"I love you papa."

"I love you too sweet spark." He smiled at me. Then he handed me to the twins, who had snuck up behind me. "Go give that new bed a work out." Papa said. "I'll take care of everything here."

As the twins eagerly dragged me away to our room for our first interface, I could have sworn I saw something small and glowing blue slip out of the corner of my father's eye. Something that suspiciously looked like a tear.


	74. Ride'Em, Rope'Em, Spur'Em If They Buck

(_**Amusingly enough, this chapter was going to be titled 'Plug It In, Plug It In' but I found another that I liked more and abbreviated it to fit in the title box. I hope you find it as amusing as I do myself**_

_**The long awaited has finally come!**_

_**Okay, so this is my first time ever writing anything like this. And those of you who guessed, I am 15, so those of you who know your right, then kudos to you. Anyway, please accept my dearest apologies for the horrible lemon in this chapter, as I am a virgin to this as well in real life. Any knowledge in here comes from books I've read and other fellow authors whose lemons I have read.**_

_**And this is going to be kind of wet. I mean, they do have ports and rods for a reason, yes? So, I guess we'll see what we get to happen as I write it :/**_

_**Anyways, enjoy the chapter if you can. If you don't want to read a lemon, then please just ignore this update. It wont hurt my feelings at all. I did the honest to god best I could, and it took me a while to write, many freak outs, and many giggles and snorts at random scenarios that ran through my mind.**_

_**Enjoy.**_)

Just before we got to the room, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker both hooked one arm under my legs in a fireman's carry. Then they walked me through the door. It was the best they could do for the bride walking over the threshold. When they set me down, they stepped in front of me slightly as I caught my balance and moved my hand to press the button to shut the door.

As the door closed behind me, the twins turned simultaneously and gave me identical sexy grins. They stripped off their ties, and I took that moment to unbutton the skirt and slip it off along with kicking off my giant metal stiletto shoes. As I stepped away from the bundle of giant cloths on the floor, the twins threw their ties down and then swayed towards me.

Sunstreaker leaned up and claimed my lips in a heated, loving, and hungry kiss; his jaw working in tune with mine as our tongues slipped out into each other's mouths and intertwined. He pressed himself to my front, arms looping behind me to stroke at the old wound where my spark had been blown out back in Egypt. The protoform under it was still sensitive, scarred, and it hurt if it wasn't touched the right way; and oh god was it being touched the right way right now. Sideswipe set to ravishing my neck gently, licking hot trails up to my audio receptor. Metal teeth nipped and nibbled at the few displayed sensitive wires.

Once at my audio receptor, Sideswipe sucked on the top of it briefly and then whispered suavely to me. "We're going to have a little foreplay first, then we'll lose the armor, yes?" His hands dipped down to my buttocks, slipping into the armor cracks and stroking the tender protoform skin underneath. His mouth moved to nibble my antenna, teeth scraping just light enough to drive me insane and lips rubbing just the right way to make me moan.

This we had done before, the play, but nothing past this point.

"Mmm." I answered with a moan. Sunstreaker rocked against me as Sideswipe sidled up behind me. They guided the three of us to lean against the hanger wall, so that I was pinned between the two of them. I took that moment to rock my own hips in what I hoped was a good motion. It must have been okay, because I received two moans.

"If you do that," Sunstreaker rumbled as he released my mouth. "Then we wont make it through any play." He leaned down and sucked my throat cable.

I inhaled and took that chance to grind against Sideswipe and to run my tongue over Sunstreaker's ear fin. As I sucked the tip into my mouth, I let my teeth scrape over the bright yellow part of the fin. Sideswipe rocked against my backside, along with Sunstreaker rocking roughly against my front.

"Mmm." Sideswipe groaned. "As much as I love your delicious backside, I think it's time we traded places, right brother?"

"Don't want to share," Sunstreaker grouched. He flipped me over anyways, and this time he set to nibbling my door wings while feeling up my ass, his fingers tickling some wires, and tweaking some others in pleasure

Sideswipe claimed my mouth in a hot kiss; letting his hands stroke my thighs softly. I let my hands wander to stroke gently over his codpiece, and then trail up his armored stomach. I settled with my hands stroking the wires and protoform under the armor of his hips. Moving my mouth from his, I licked and nibbled the best I could to his audio receptors. He met out a moan and a chuckle as I nibbled a wire.

"That tickles." He chuckled. I blinked slowly. Oops… I guess I did that wrong. "Go a little more to the left…" I did. "Ah, that feels so- mmmmm…" I nibbled again. "Ahh-mmmmmmmm."

It makes me feel good if I can make at least one of them speechless.

Sunstreaker ran his tongue over my door wing and up to my antenna, nipping hot little trails the whole way up. I felt something that wasn't usually there pressing against my backside, and then my front as well. I did not look because I was a bit busy lavishing Sideswipe's ear and neck. I didn't need to. I knew what it was; I _am_ a part time medic. That, and it's about waist level.

"Getting a little excited?" I questioned lowly as I pressed a lush kiss to Sideswipe's mouth. I shifted on my feet, doing so also made me grind slowly against the mechs holding me. Sunstreaker let out a growl as he pressed tighter up against me, there for Sideswipe as well, letting me get a feel of what was to come from both sides.

"Hard not to." He rumbled. Sunstreaker moved his fingers back to the spot where I had been shot. He wiggled them in and rubbed some sensitive areas softly, provocatively.

A pain flared as Sunstreaker brushed his fingers softly in a wrong spot. White enveloped my optics, blanking everything out for a few seconds. My knees buckled against Sideswipe's, the brace of the red mechs legs keeping me from hitting the ground along with fingers tightening in my armor. "Ouch." I groaned. "Wrong spot."

"Sorry." Sunstreaker murmured. He kissed the affected area softly, though not in the same spot as where he had touched that had dropped me. "I did not mean to cause you pain."

"It's fine." I said. I wiggled my butt against them as I got my footing once more. "I think," I mused, "That I'm ready for a little more then fun."

"You sure?" Sideswipe purred. He kissed me softly, trailing a kiss down to lick the spot where my chest armor would part. "We can give you so much more…"

"Mmm… tempting." I mused, playing tonsil hockey with Sideswipe for a moment. Then I pulled back and gave them what I hoped was a sexy smile. "But then there wouldn't be many more surprises for later."

Sunstreaker rumbled with a chuckle. "Indeed." He let out a purr. "We get top this time."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, round two you can take top if you want." Sideswipe said. Then he pressed a kiss to me that left my mind boggled for a moment. As they pulled back and left me to catch my balance, I could hear armor dropping off piece by piece.

I let my armor loosen clasp by clasp. Then, with small 'tink' noises as it dropped, it shed off piece by piece. It started with my legs, and then my stomach, and then further up. As my arms lost their armor, and then my chassis, I let my weapons system disengage as well. Ratchet had once said that for some bots, in great moments of passion, their weapons would fire. I don't want to take that chance.

When the last piece dropped off, and my wheel's subspaced themselves, leaving me in a thinner and lighter gleaming dark gray-silver protoform, I took that moment to inhale and puff out my chassis. Even in protoform, my hips are wide; wider then my chassis, and I'm still tall, though about a few inches shorter then with my armor.

I looked to the twins. They stood side by side, watching me with a hunger in their optics that I had seen before. Sunstreaker still has his head fins, though they are a bright silver color instead of yellow. In truth, they look like themselves with the exception that they're thinner and are silver and gray. My optics wandered down to their thinner and boxier chassis' that are so much different then my own chassis, and then to their arms and stomachs. Toned and well muscled from how they held themselves, and how their cables and protoform bulged.

My eyes slipped lower to the things that had sprung free from their confines. Rigid and erect, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker's interface rods stuck out like trees in a desert. They were long, oh so fucking long, and though not the thickest, I have a feeling that's because they're used at the same time. In all honesty, they have no balls. None at all. No sack, no nothing. Just a rod sticking straight out from the delicious chiseled metal bodies. And their rods are smooth looking, like liquid metal, with slightly rounder tips then the rest of it.

As I was staring, the identical interface rods twitched, and raised a little bit higher. "Like what you see?" I purred.

"Of course." Sideswipe purred back, his optics taking a moment to make a sweep of my body. Then another. "Like it? To light of a word, Princess. Try _loving_ your body_._"

Sunstreaker's optics glinted with a strange light as he looked at me, but he ran his hands down his protoform slowly, tracing curves in a sensuously arousing way. "Do _you_ like what _you_ see?"

"Mmmm." I purred. I ran my tongue over my teeth and lips as my eyes ran over the metal bodies that belonged to my men. "I love what I see." I shifted slightly, my bare protoform slightly chilled in the cooler air now that my armor did not cover it.

"Come here." They said, and each extended one of their hands to me. I stepped forward without question, allowing them to grasp my hands and pull me close so that I rested half on each of them. I could feel the heat of their sparks reaching for me through their protoform skin-armor, and in turn my own heat reached for theirs. They started backing me towards the bed.

When my legs hit, we toppled backwards. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker landed crouched over me, each with one leg between mine. "I think," Sunstreaker purred. "That it's time to kick it up a notch."

His right hand moved to brace my left hand up above my head, and then Sideswipe moved and brought my right hand up with his left and pinned it where his brother had pinned the other one. I let my engine rumble happily as I took the usually golden twin's mouth. Sideswipe licked and suckled at my throat, moving to lick my chest plates where my spark was housed.

Their hands, oh their wicked little hands, moved to run teasing fingers up the inside of my spread thighs. They tapped against the covering that hid my port from view. I had personally never slid it open, so all I did was try and will it to open. It slid slowly open, blasting something that was sensitive with cold air, and making me inhale sharply. Fingers then slowly circled me with teasing twitches and tweaks. Then one of their fingers found a little nub of nerves that sent little jellifying feelings to my legs.

I could not help but moan as something inside me tightened with the feeling of need. I squirmed a little, using my knees to brush gently against their rods. The rods went even harder at my gentle touch. I did it again, gaining small nips, nibbles, and moans from my mechs. I let out a small uncomfortable grunt as one of them pinched the sensitive nub a little to hard, but that was soon made up for with a soft caress and roll of the nerve bundle.

Sideswipe breathed, "If you do that too much, we wont be able to wait. We want to pleasure you for your first time." His mouth descended onto my right chest plate, hot like molten lava. It made me shiver in pleasure.

"And if I don't want to wait?" I gasped. Sunstreaker moved to lick, rub, and nibble at the sensitive cable on the right side of my neck.

"Then I would do this." Sunstreaker answered me in a hot gust of air. His finger tweaked the nub, sending me writhing in a bundle of scorching, over heating nerves.

"You're teasing me is- ahhhh-" my speech halted. Sunstreaker pinched the nerve bundle and Sideswipe delved a little ways into me with a finger. That devil finger wiggled and pressed in places I did not know felt good. It was cooler then the heat within my body, and it made me grind against the invading hands in mind-boggling pleasure. My nerves and wires zinged and tingled with the feeling.

"I think we've tormented her enough Sunny." Sideswipe purred. His rod twitched against my leg.

"Your right." Sunstreaker murmured. "I think its time." They leaned up so they straddled me. Then they moved their legs. Sunstreaker smiled at me. "You're going to have to stretch, because we're going to be both between your legs."

Wait… What? They moved my legs further and further apart, to the point it was painful, and then beyond. I grunted. "Ow. Looks like I need to work on flexibility."

Sideswipe chucked at me and stroked a hand down my face softly. "Or get you to do the splits. Don't worry though," he winked, " I think we can help with that."

I let out a breath of air as I felt two things as my entrance. "I'm sure you will." I rocked my hips against them as my legs adjusted themselves. I ground against them, letting my warm core rub against them. I let out little warbles and coos along with them in pleasure. And then, in one quick movement, both of them were jammed deep inside me somehow. And it hurt, being stretched like that. It made me let out a small whine from my vocal processor.

"Your tight, Princess." Sideswipe breathed. I saw his chest plates start to crack open, Sunstreaker's following shortly. My own started cracking open slowly.

"So tight babe, so tight." Sunstreaker grunted.

"You're both big." I groaned. I took that moment to wiggle, earning a groan from my twins and myself. I gasped loudly, and then inhaled. "Alright." I rocked slightly, my hips twanging just slightly in pain. "Lets do this."

I felt them pull out almost all the way, leaving me feeling hopelessly empty, and then slam back in. Then the thrusts began, deep and hard, long and fast, short and slow. It was a whole myriad of different paces. I found myself gasping their names and moving with them. I rocked, they rocked, and my hips touched their hips, them deep inside of me. Grunts, gasps, names being called. Our chest plates were slowly inching apart. Friction was created from the rubbing and sparking of our parts, hot enough that our cooling fans kicked on.

A lifetime could have passed for all I know. For all we know, Megatron could have won the war. At the moment, I would not have known if he had, nor would have I cared much here. Pleasure, pain; it was all the same. It was all one affront in the mind of the woman and man alike. If I was in pain, it was transformed into pleasure, and pleasure into pure aphrodisiac.

I used my free arms to flip them, and then smiled coyly at them and ground my hips up and down. I rode them well, deep and hard. I ground, wiggled, and moaned in rapture. They bucked, thrusted, and generally gave me one hell of a ride, and I spurred them on with touches, moans, little fondles. Then I let them flip me over again, so that we were once more in the semi center of the bed. Good thing for the extra large bed, that's for sure.

Vaguely I could feel my family bonds flair and then dampen quickly, followed by a flood of embarrassment from my parents. Then I could feel lust from their side as well, and closed it off as tight as I could. This was one moment I did not want to share with them.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe's optics were clouded with lust as they drove home within me, deep into the sensual recesses of my very core. Nerve bundles I never even knew about were hit, rubbed, and pleasured so much it almost whited out my vision. They were far too gone to do anything to stop them; but who was I to want them too? I myself was too far-gone. Far too gone to do anything other then just go along with the ride. And what I ride it was.

I felt the heat coil tighter in my stomach area as my spark casing fully opened. The twin's spark casings fully opened too. They were magnificent. Glowing blue orbs that flashed in multiple hues of blues and whites that were defiantly larger then my own were floating out of their casings as Sunstreaker and Sideswipe continued to hammer deep within my port. As my spark floated towards theirs, I felt the heat in my belly coil tighter, so tight I thought it could snap. I felt the twins swelling within me, growing larger, tighter, and hotter.

As my spark met with theirs in a blinding flash that sent all my buzzers and beepers off, I heard the conjoined roar of my Lamborghini's and my own scream of pure ecstasy echoing through out the room. Within me, as my own walls tightened and clamped against the twin's rods, I felt them release some type of hot fluid deep within me.

Memories flew before my optics in the light, the twins fighting in a gladiatorial arena, sparkling twins, adult twins. My own memories mingled with theirs, but nothing from before I became a transformer, and nothing that Primus had said that it had to remain a secret. Wedding memories flew by; the deaths of comrades, emotions and their memories flitted through my mind. As a whole, the twins and I suffered, despaired, hated, agonized, lusted, felt joy, ecstasy, happiness, insanity, sanity, amusement, but most of all, loved like there was no other.

As the light floated away, returning back to our chests, I felt something settle into place, as subtle as a falling leaf. I could feel the twins, and I knew they could feel me too. I sent them my feelings, and they sent me theirs as well. Love, lingering lust. I kissed them both passionately as my stomach cables contracted in lingering waves of pleasure.

"That was the most amazing thing that I have ever felt." I breathed lowly. I could hear our cooling fans working double time to cool us down.

"Yes," Sideswipe agreed. "It was."

"Mmm." Sunstreaker said. "I can feel you. I like feeling you."

"Me too." I nodded. The twins slowly pulled out of me, some sort of mechanism inside of me closing around the fluids within my body so that it could not escape, and slipped down on ether side of me. I grinned suddenly. "You should be proud."

"Oh?"

"I'm addicted to the two of you on the first go around. Tired as I may be, I still want a round two." I said. I slipped up and let them slide together before straddling them. I stroked their wet rods, fondling them as they responded slowly in my grip. Slowly I lowered my self so I rubbed against them, helping them harden in my grip. I received gasps, and little tremors. "I'm going to ride you so hard that _all three_ of us are going to be walking bowlegged for a week."

I got saucy winks in return. "Oh, its on Princess."


	75. Maximum Velocity

(_**Listen, I know your all like, YAY UPDATE! But know this; this is short, and it is kind of a filler. It takes care of the whole Sparkling snazz, but also gives us a small break. And me, lol. The next chapter goes I think four years into the future, when Sam finishes collage. So basically the beginning of the DOTM arc. :3 and into my special surprise!**_

_**Also, in the DOTM movie, doesn't it look like Starscream has rabies because he spits so much? Just the musings of a slightly insane authoress.**_

_**Can anyone tell me how long it is from this point, roughly a year after Sam goes back to collage, to the beginning of the DOTM arc?**_)

It's been four days since the twins and I became bonded, and since we were wed. Four awesome days. The wedding nights, and the day after, were spent almost literally screwing each other's brains out. For the last three days we've all been walking funny. I hadn't been kidding when I told them I was going to make all three of us walk bowlegged. And you know what? I don't regret it at all, despite walking like some hillbilly with a banjo stuck up my ass. My bond with the twins is strong; though right now they have it dwindled, as they are busy running a short mission in Virginia.

The day before yesterday Ratchet finally got around to installing the laser scalpel. He also installed these neat little things into my hands; they are like little mini hands that extend out from the cracks in my finger tip armor that look exactly like my hands only on a minuscule scale. They even have these teensy tiny little claws on the end of each finger, though they are a hell of a lot more fragile then my normal claws. Ratchet had told me that they were useful for many things with medical bots. They can be used for holding armor while the main hands work within the armor, the little hands can also be used for getting into tight spaces that the larger hands cant. Ratchet says he has a pair that he uses now since I'm too big to do the little work any more.

Currently its Three o'clock in the afternoon, I'm sitting in the med bay next to Chromia. We're waiting for Ironhide to get here, seeing as he got sent on patrol earlier this morning. As for why I'm here? Well, Chromia just thought that now would be the perfect time to go into labor around an hour and a half ago. So I'm sitting here near her separated unileg feet while she's propped up on a large pillow making dents in the side of the bed with her hands. At my feet is a pile of towels for later, and a large sheet has been draped across her lower half, though it ends at her ankles.

"Ah fragging fragger better hurry the frag up!" Chromia hissed. I eyed her greatly distended stomach as the softer plates that made the globe up contracted, the plates overlapping as they tightened up.

I patted her foot softly. "I know, I know." I murmured to her. "He'll be here soon." Sighing, I gave a small grunt. "How far along does the sparkling feel?"

She sighed at me as her stomach plattings loosened. Chromia shifted restlessly. "I can feel it pressing down into my sparking channel, trying to slide in. It's almost time, isn't it?"

I nodded. "Yeah. If it's that far, it wont be too long now. How are your contractions?"

"Close." Chromia answered. "Comm. Link him will you? I feel another one coming." I nodded at him.

'_Ironhide_?'

'_I'm coming runt. We just entered the compound on the far side of the base. I have to dodge all these slagging mammals. What room are you in?'_

'_Med bay room 34A'_

'_ETA three minutes and counting.'_

'_We'll be waiting.'_

Shuffling my toes and playing with my claws, I spoke to Chromia. "Ironhide just arrived. He'll be here in a little less then three minutes." I patted her foot softly as she gave a chuff of discomfort. "When he gets here, I'll have him prop you up, alright?"

"Yeah." She grunted shortly. "I'll be glad when this is over."

"Yeah." I snorted dryly in half amusement. "You'll be able to see your feet, you get to play with your weapons, and you get to be back on duty." I leaned back briefly in the rolling chair I was seated in. "Sounds like paradise." She vented heavily in amusement. And then we sat in a silence for a while.

It was long enough for me to move my hands out in front of me and transform the little hands out. I have five on each hand, and they come from the tips of my fingers. They've been installed next to my claws, and Ratchet had me repeatedly test them to see if they would interfere with one another. So anyways, I had them out and waving about, flexing my miniature fingers and exercising them. Thumb wrestling myself is actually kind of amusing. I have one hand thumb wrestling themselves, and the other is playing a massive game of paddy-cake-paddy-cake-bakers-man.

"What are you doing?" Chromia asked.

I held up my hands, taking one of the mini hands to wave at her. "Exercising my hands." I wiggled the fingers of the little mini hand at her. "Ratchet says if I want to be proficient at them, that I need to practice with doing multiple things at the same time." One of the hands playing paddy-cake missed the other. "I'm not the best at it. I can only do two separate things at a time."

"Ah." She mused. "Can you hold things with them?"

I nodded. "Yes." I stopped the hands playing paddy-cake all together and reached for the empty square of energon on a table next to the bed. I closed all five hands over it at different points, sinking the little claws at the tips of those twenty-five fingers just slightly into the thick material of the cup, and then I lifted it up. "See?"

"Nice." When I set the glass down, Chromia took my hand and examined the little fingers. "Claws on them too? My, aren't you just the walking claw machine." I took that moment to grasp her hand with my five little ones and slide my claws back in. Her hand clenched as a sudden contraction hit her, and trapped one of my little hands in hers, though it was in a spot it did not get crushed. It still squashed my fingers though.

"Ow." I said. The contraction was a short one and passed quickly, letting me free my little hand. I stretched the hand, flexing it to find it worked just fine.

"Sorry."

"Its alright. Your taking this surprisingly well, the pain at least."

"I'm a femme weapon specialist, pain is my friend. I am old, and have been in war for a long, long, long time." She grunted. "This is nothing compared to other things I've felt." I had nothing to say to that.

The door slid open and a flustered Ironhide came barreling in. He hurried to Chromia and started speaking to her in clicks, warbles, and other assorted noises that I did not know. He stroked a hand over her cheek as she laid one of her hands on his arm, taking a tender moment in the time of slight stress. I gave them that tender moment as I transformed my little fingers back into my normal fingers.

I stood with a grunt and stretched. "Alright, Ironhide take a seat behind your sparkmate and keep your mouth shut."

He glanced at me. "Might I ask why?"

"To give her leverage, and so you don't say something that distracts me, now scoot. I need to check on her progress." I made the shoeing motion with my hands with a snort as I grabbed up the towels and the chair. I set them down on the right of the bed and took a seat on the end. He vented at me but did it anyways. "Good mech." I flipped the sheet up to Chromia's knees and then bent them upward to give me access before lying a towel across the bed below her ass. "Alright, how does the sparkling feel right now?"

She made a face. "It feels like it's trying to enter my channel, but I think it's caught on something." She shifted uncomfortably.

"Alright." I nodded. "I'm going to remove your codpiece, alright? I need to see if it's hung up by an audio horn or anything."

"Go for it." She vented.

I unlatched the covering and moved it away. A shiver of awkwardness worked its way up my spinal strut as I looked down at her dilated port. She was at the correct dilation, my information packets told me. I transformed one of my smaller arm-hands out of the tip of my finger. "Don't be alarmed," I warned, "I'm going in to check on what's causing the hang-up."

She grunted and looked away.

Letting my hand slide up through her port, which was grossly moist, I worked my way up to what could be causing the problem. I found the sparkling, and what a beast of a sparkling it was. Its head was almost too big to fit through the tunnel, but it would do fine with some help. I felt about, and found the hang-up. The right audio horn thing, like Ironhide's it felt like, was hung up on the outer rim of the gestational chamber exit. I couldn't shift it with one hand, so I brought another one in and fixed it.

Chromia let out a gasping whine as the sparkling lurched forward unhindered by the blockage. I set my finger hands on ether side of the sparklings head to give it leverage and help it be guided out. Chromia groaned as a contraction hit, sending a gush of some sort of fluid running out of her port and onto the towel I had laid there previously. The sparkling moved forwards a bit, growing heavier in my little hands by the second. I brought my other little hands up to help support the sparkling, guiding certain ones up farther to the child's back and shoulders.

"You," I drawled dryly, "have one huge ass sparkling."

"Blame the mech creator." Chromia hissed. Her stomach plates shrunk back down as the sparkling moved from chamber to channel slowly. It didn't stop them though from contracting tightly.

"Always blame the mechs." Ironhide shook his head. "You femme's I'll never understand."

"Shush." I said. Another contraction racked Chromia's abdominal plattings. The sparkling got stuck briefly, making Chromia hiss in pain, but I wiggled it out of that jam easily enough. Momentarily, it crowned. The helm was navy blue. "You have a navy blue sparkling." I said. "It has its fathers audio receptors, but from what I can see, it has its mothers facial structure."

They said nothing as Chromia pushed harshly. The sparklings shoulders left her port, and then the sparkling began to cry this piercing wail that hurt my ears. I grabbed another towel with one hand and then moved the child to my larger hand while using the little ones to wiggle in deeper and grasp the child. Then, when I had a secure grasp, I gently started to give added pressure to help the child slide out faster.

With one last grunt from Chromia, the child slid into my hands and was transferred to the towel. Shaking my hand to try and rid it of the slime from being a midwife, I took a moment to remove the genital covering. What was there surprised me. It was a little femme. Well, not so little. The sparkling, damn it all, was roughly five foot long, and was rather nimble looking for a sparkling. The femme sparkling stopped her wailing as soon as she was wrapped up. She gurgled curiously at me.

I handed her over. "You have a femme."

"Beautiful." They said together.

Chromia continued. "She shall be named Velocity."


	76. The Reign Of Peace Ends In Time

(_**So few reviews… oh well, its Christmas break, it's the time for family and friends, not Fan-Fiction :/ Regardless, I still bring you the next chapter of GIBTH! And back out of mushy gushy ooc Nightstrider! Back to our loveable swearing femme {heart}**_

_**Oh, and you should know, my computer has the grammar of a hillbilly. It thinks that some sentences should be like 'he don't want no more of them Skids and Mudflaps.' And I know it ends abruptly, but that's because I didn't want to write out the whole damn scene.**_

_**I have a hillbilly/redneck computer :D**_

_**Oh, and I apologize for any ooc things about the new characters here, since I know absolutely nothing about them as G1 isn't the best at building personalities. Or at least to me it isn't… I could never get into it…**_)

Three years. Three long years have gone past, with very little major trouble from Decepticons. In these three years, we've been subjugated to doing the dirty work of mankind, from assassinating people who would become problems to the various nations, to recon and rescues of our men and innocent people caught in the midst of war. For the most part, after the missions, we're left to our own devices, to do as we damn well please… but, if anything goes wrong, Charlotte Mearing comes to find us, and then chews us out. If she can't find us, she gets my Father, and then he relays the message, albeit defiantly a more abbreviated version. She has… pretty much become intolerable, almost as bad as a female Galloway. Good thing I don't have to deal with her any more.

That's right, I don't have to deal with the bitch any more. One of our new arrivals does. In three years, we've had three arrivals, though they were all at the same time in three separate locations. We have Hound in Africa, who took the form of one of the army jeeps and stands roughly eighteen feet tall. Air Raid landed in Scotland, and is our first Autobot Seeker to arrive on earth, other then old dead Jetfire of course. He stands at about twenty-eight feet, is not Dorito shaped like Starscream, and changed into an F15 Eagle. And then we have the mech who willingly took my job as ambassador; Bluestreak, who was found in Iowa. At seventeen feet tall, in the form of a speedy racing car, he can out talk even the chattiest of the nest members. He never fucking shuts up. But, that makes him the best for ambassador. Bluestreak has more patience then I do when it comes to human matters, and can sit there for hours boring other ambassadors until they give in. The only ones that don't mind him are Kureno, Kartika, and Alexandra.

Hound is collaborating with Wheeljack and Que to build solid holo-forms for all of the Autobots here, so we can 'partake in human merriment and customs' so says Hound. He's a little bit obsessed with nature and humans, and he can quite literally spout out any random fact that you could ever possibly dream of about earth, from what he's observed or found out from other humans. He enjoys talking with Bumblebee, who has been back with us for three months, about human music and sounds.

Sam and Mikaela broke up shortly after my wedding. I don't know the little, teeny, tiny details, but it was over something along the lines of 'they grew apart' or some shit like that. It sucks ass, it really does, but that also means that we got to hire Mikaela for security breach reasons. Currently she helps out Ratchet in the med bay, organizing data pads, appointments, and scheduled tune-ups for us bots. She also works on any malfunctioning military cars for the humans.

Sam, as far as I know, is with Carly, whom I met _four times _on four different occasions and can say she's a prissy little snitchy British bitch with an ironic sense of humor. Regardless, she wants nothing to do with us, or the military, on the count that her brother died. She claims that they would rather have him then his medals, and while I cant scrutinize her since I _myself_ died in the service of the military and left behind family, I think she whines about it just a wee bit much. In my honest opinion, I say she should accept that he's gone, honor him, and move on with her life. Not forget, but move on, like my human family had when I died.

Speaking of family; Elita and Optimus are doing well, as is Leo. Papa is off in some odd country over an energon reading, the one in the movie where they find a part to the 'ark' ship or something or other. Anways, Leo isn't so little any more, and by my count, he's actually a little over four years old now… Maybe three. He's now about four foot tall, and weighs about one hundred pounds. Leo's at that stage where he's bypassed the walking, and went straight for the running. That little mech is hella fast; always slipping away from whoever is watching him. As for Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, our relationship is going well. Out sex life is fine, we've worked out most of the kinks, and I can now do the splits successfully. We've had our fights, three big ones to my count, usually over the fact that while I'm a fully functioning femme, capable of going out and killing Decepticons, I should not be going on missions where there would be humans firing various harmful weapons at me. I don't recall what our worst fight was over, or rather what mission I went on without warning them, but all I know is that it made me go on a drive in a rage where I was gone for a week without showing my face or letting them feel my bond with them. During that week, I had drove like a madwoman all the way to Oregon to visit my mother's grave, and my own coincidently. To be blunt, when I got back we pretty much had a make up fuck. For the other fights that have had me steamed enough to where steam was literally rolling from my smokestacks I usually left to go snooze in the med bay. Those too were made up by sparkmerges and sweet little kisses and coos.

The other sparkling here, the femme sparkling Velocity, is a little terror. Height wise she hasn't grown at all, she's still a few centimeters less than five feet, but she is bulked out. While she isn't as thick as her father, she is by no means like her mother. She's in-between the both, and has a fascination for weapons of any type and my little finger hands. She has her father's personality, and is about the most violent little three year old I have _ever_ seen. She beats my babysitting the exorcist child by _far_. She still has that fucking super sonic wail of hers, one that she often makes use of. However, she really only misbehaves for Elita, Arcee, Jolt, Ratchet, and both sets of twins. She doesn't mind the rest, in fact, and me as well seeing as I'm the closest to their age. Velocity likes to tackle my feet, and she _always_ loops my brother into doing it as well. I have mastered walking with wiggling, giggling weights on my feet. In truth, both of the sparklings are actually a very advanced race of child. Or at least these ones are. Form the moment they can talk, Ratchet kidnaps them and teaches them to speak, act, working their brains, giving them all sorts of interesting things to do and raise their intelligence. As a result, they are smarter then they usually let on. Ratchet is a fucking drill sergeant. That, and he doesn't want more of Skids and Mudflap.

N.E.S.T. has officially disbanded, and has been disbanded for a long, long time. They cut our time shorter, so it actually disbanded shortly after my wedding. The only remaining member of N.E.S.T. besides us giant robots of course, is William. Epps was shipped to work somewhere with NASA, and everyone else was laid off with a pension of some sort. I don't know where everyone else is, but I miss the group. Especially our poker parties. But I suppose not everything is forever.

As for myself? Well, not much has changed. My little hands aren't used often, unless the twins and I are having a pleasant love making session. When I'm not sent on small missions, never out of the country because Papa is overprotective, I've taking to learning more about being a Cybertronian medic, but I also run errands for humans, such as groceries for the cooks even though I always have to bring along one of the humans stationed at the base. The head cook for the whole base is actually pretty cool; she's an American chef who specializes in meals that stick with you for hours. She's bossy, but aren't all good chefs? Regardless, I also do data pad errands for Prowl, Jazz, Optimus and Ratchet too. Rather miscellaneous things, if I think about it. While I do these things, I often find myself babysitting unexpectedly. Sparklings are much easer to baby-sit then human children. The sparklings like to chill with me because along with being Leo's big sister, I let them do a lot that other adult bots wouldn't. I also sit there and tell them random children stories that I know, and some altered versions with the Autobots in them.

Right now, my feet are trudging along in one of the narrow hallways towards Ratchet's office. In my right hand is a stack of data pads from Prowl, all of which Mikaela is going to end up filling out probably, and my little hands extended from my finger tips to keep the stack steadily balanced. In all, today has been a very boring day, but then and again Papa and a couple others are gone.

I let out a grunt when I stubbed my toe on a box, totally demolishing the box and my pride. I mean, who actually steps on a box that's in the hallway? "Son of a bitch!" I cursed.

There was a slightly high-pitched war cry, and then I felt my feet get slammed by two wiggling masses of youngling. Looking down at the giggling sparklings on my feet, I paused in my waling and lifted the foot with Leo on it out so I could see him properly. "And what do you think you're both doing?" I arched an eyebrow plate.

"Surprising you!" he squeaked. His arms were wrapped around part of my shin, his butt sitting on my foot with his legs wrapped around my ankle. Leo blinked up at me with blue optics that is darker then his light blue armor. His face hasn't changed much, except he has Optimus's audio receptors.

"Oh?" I grinned. "Who did you give the slip too?"

Velocity tapped my leg, so I switched it over. She scrunched up her face at me. Her armor is dark, like a night sky dark, and she looks like a miniature Ironhide on a diet. She had her mother's eyes though. "Skids and Assflap."

I wonder where she got her potty mouth. Nice name for him though. "Hey, you can't use those words. Only big mechs can use those words."

She smirked at me. "But you use them."

I took my free hand and set it on my chassis as I wiggled my foot slightly. "Grumpy femme medics are an exception, squirt." I got giggles at that from Leo, and he nuzzled into my shin. It tickled, goddamn, and it made me feel like I have an itch under my armor. I wiggled slightly.

"You're not grumpy sissy!" Leo chirped. I felt him in up my leg slightly, like a little leg humping leech. "You're my sister! And we love you!"

"How sweet." I said. "You want up don't you?" I shifted on my feet, tilting my hips slightly. My door wings and antenna fluttered slightly, tilting this way and that.

"Yes please!" They chimed.

I snorted. "Only if you both don't swear. At all." I have my prices. Since they're around me a fair bit, if they start cursing in front of others, whom do you think they'll blame? My human mother once told me the shit rolls down hill, it rolls down hill and hit one person and then another, and another. A never ending chain of shit hitting, with people running down the hill to get away from it, only to get hit again and again. Not pleasant if you ask me.

"We promise!" I looked at them. They were giving me the goddamn robo-puppy eyes. Daw…. Fuck it.

I sighed. Damn munchkins and their little kid powers. "Up you get then." I brought down my left hand, and free hand, and let my little hands extend from my fingertips as I brought up my leg. I settled them around Leo first, my little hands sliding around his body like tentacles and holding gently onto him. He let go and then I lowered my leg and brought him to my right shoulder. When I released him, all one hundred pounds of him scrambled and settled into a safe open spot on my shoulder. Then I scooped up Velocity, my little hands holding tighter as she weighed a bit more then my brother. I let her onto my left shoulder, where she stretched out and settled down for the ride.

When I thought they were ready, I set off to walking towards the med bay again with my legs free of weights. My shoulders however, were being leeched onto by two little wiggling giggle children. "You two are so easily amused."

"Not really," Leo tugged my audio receptor, "your just funny."

I grunted. "How come you never tackle Papa like that?" I moved one of my little hands up and tickled the side panels on Leo's rib area.

He let out a warble of giggles. "Papa's legs are too thick to attach too."

"Prime has big feet." Velocity chimed. "His feet are bigger then my Papa's, and my Papa has _huge_ feet."

I let out a snort. "I'm gonna tell Papa that you both said he has fat legs and fat feet." I grinned. "Papa will hang you upside down by your toes and let me help tickle you until you wet yourself." I turned a corner, passing by a group of humans who were having a jolly good time laughing at my shoulder growths and me. "Yuck it up little fleshlings, yuck it up… I'm sending them after you next." I said to them. They wandered off laughing.

"Papa's harmless," Leo said. "He wouldn't do that to us!"

"And if he tried, we could run away faster then he could catch us."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that." My mind wandered to the fight scenes in the movies, where Papa kicked major ass. Then my mind wandered to back when Optimus had chased us through the entire base, and caught us even when we had a ten second head start.

"So," Velocity chirped. "Where are we going?"

"Ratchet's med bay." I answered. I let out a loud laugh as they let out little giggles. "What did you do to him?"

"Nothing." Leo said. "Skids and Mudflap were planning on painting him pink though."

"Ah. When you see what Ratchet does to them, then you'll be wiser then them I hope and avoid the wrenches."

Suddenly Velocity stirred on my shoulder. "Papa's back! Can we make a detour?" She tugged excitedly on my Audio receptor.

"Sure, sure, I don't think Ratchet will mind." I said. I turned down a different hall, taking that way towards one of the main hallways. If Ironhide is back, then that means that my Papa is back too, and my Bonded have returned as well.

We walking silence for a little bit, or at least I did. The sparklings chattered to each other in their sparkling lingo. It makes me wonder what they're saying. But… then and again, I think I'd be terrified to know just what the hell they're actually saying. Its one of those things where you want to know but you don't at the same time.

Walking out into one of the hangars, I found it was the right one. Papa was bent over, steam bellowing out of his smokestacks, and he was talking to Charlotte Mearing and her little assistant. In front of him was that little orb thing that was in the third movie, part of the arc I think. So, it's getting this close to the third movie is it?

I let down Velocity and Leo, and Velocity ran with an excited squeak to attack onto her fathers' leg. Leo just attached to my leg and watched our father deal with the humans. I took a moment to look at Ironhide. He had bent down and scooped up his sparkling, settling her on top of the broad expansion of his chassis. In hushed whispers Ironhide talked with her, cooing and clicking, chuckling quietly at her tales of this and that. In truth, the rough and tumble mech is actually one hell of a father.

He died in the movie, but in the movie it did not look like he had a family. It makes me wonder, really it does, how his little girl is going to take his offlining. And how Chromia will take it as well. What a melancholy feeling… one I can't help but feel. Soon, if I'm correct, Sentinel Prime will be retrieved from space, and there starts the end of this time of peace. And the loss of one of our research specialists, and our Weapon specialist.


	77. MoonFormers

(_**Ah yes, hello~ sorry I haven't updated :/ life got in the way, and yesterday and the day before that I was going to update but never found the time between keeping the abandoned dieing calf comfortable, trying to get it to live, and taking care said dieing baby cow that died yesterday at around two thirty and my grandmother pestering me.**_

To my brain-spark twin, Zayren Heart, I thank you for being with me through out my bitching and groaning about my hip, the dead calf, and my Christmas woes. ;) Keep in mind that I'll listen to your woes as well. Be aware for my New Years woes!

_**I would also like to immensely thank Demonatron for working on a picture of Nightstrider, whenever she has it up, and when she does I'll get the link put on my profile.**_

_**Now we are officially and fully into the Dark Of The Moon Arc, and though I wont drag the damn thing out, I'm going to have to struggle through this so chapter might be short or uber long. If it sucks, I apologize, but that's because I'm trying to integrate Nightstrider into something that is incredibly difficult to do. Oh, and with what I have planned, there wont be many spoilers for those bayformers movie virgins out there.**_

_**Oh, and timelines will be funky because it isn't really specified in the movie how many days pass. I'm just gonna make a couple guesses.**_

_**Enjoy chapter 77 of GIBTH! Even though its short!**_)

"Xanthium is approaching destination."

The stars pass by, not quite looking close enough to touch, but almost. It is dark in the ship, the only light coming from the control panel and our own optic glow. In front of a large window made of some type of alien glass the rapidly approaching surface of the darker part of the moon fills the view, along with the dark shape of a ship, long dead and crashed. The ship looks ominously darker, being parked on the dark side instead of the light side of the moon.

It's been three days since Papa brought home the part from the Ark. Optimus had decided that we would be going to the moon to retrieve Sentinel Prime, and he's taking Ratchet, myself, and of course Papa's coming along too. I got stuck with moon duty because while Papa was making an announcement, I had whispered to Velocity and Leo that Optimus's feet weren't that big from far away. I suppose that'll teach me not to talk when he's making a speech. Anyways, we set off two days ago in the Xanthium, a ship that apparently the Wreckers have been building and modifying for a long time. It's taken us a day to reach the Moon; instead of three days it takes human astronauts. But then and again, we are an advanced alien race of robots.

As the ship jarred us roughly, making my metal teeth rattle together with short sharp clicks, I took that moment to assess that I did not feel weighed down like I did on earth. In my seat, strapped to a large chair like thing, I felt like I was four thousand pounds lighter. Now I know that's not the case, but its what I feel like and what Papa and Ratchet must feel like too.

We un-strapped and disembarked from the Xanthium, taking a moment to stretch while Optimus made contact with William at the base back in DC. I stretched, and my joints and cables groaned as the pressure released itself from my body. A sigh of contentment escaped my lips, though there was positively no air to inhale what so ever. Twenty-four something odd hours stuck in the same position does _wonders_ on the joints and gears.

The whole no air thing is kind of panicking at first, because oxygen is the only thing my body, human and robot, has ever breathed and been around. The lack of the oxygen molecules makes talking awkward, but kind of fun in its own way once you get past the initial 'Oh my god there's no oxygen, I'm gonna die!' scenario.

"You know," Ratchet rumbled. "Doing that is going to ruin your joints and rotary cups. Not to mention it's going to strip your gears bald and leave you feeling worse then a turbofox with a missing tail."

"Shut up Ratchet, you did train me yourself, I know my limits." I said dryly and popped my neck for effect. "You know that painting yourself that color of green is asking for name callings."

Ratchet motioned to his armor, "There is nothing wrong with being painted green."

"Green yes," I agreed. "But not that kind of green."

"What's wrong with it?" he crossed his arms with a rumble.

I tilted my hips to the side and planted my hand on the hip jutting out, letting the other dangle freely. "Well first, it's an obnoxious neon color; something I would expect Skids and Mudflap to paint you. Second, as I said earlier, it's obnoxious and in the battle field it would make you more of a target then Bumblebee's bright yellow armor makes him a target."

"I happen to like the color," Ratchet grouched at me, his face twisting into a scowl. "And me being a target is no problem. It helps me eliminate my target quicker if it comes to me."

I looked at him and squinted slightly, my antenna shifting along with my door wings. "You like the color because it's in Naruto, don't you?"

His eyebrow plates drew together and he took a moment to glance at my father, who was now setting up the little robot cam things that the human government had given us so they could film out trip. "No…"

"Yeah. You like it because that Lee dude wears it all the time. And that funky teacher, Guy I think it is. He wears it too. The one with the eyebrows."

Ratchet huffed at me and shifted his stance like he wanted to tackle me, but was too adult to do so. "_Lies_ I say_._"

I waved a hand. "What ever you say Vomitron."

He froze, his optics locking on me in a creepy evil way that only Ratchet could do. Well, him and Elita. Chromia sometimes. Ironhide gave up trying to do it because he looks constipated when he tries and it always cracks me up. "_Excuse_ me? What did you just call me?"

"Sorry Doctor Minty, there's no excuse for you." I said dryly. At his sharp look, I vented and relented. "I called you Vomitron. The paint makes you look like you've been covered in the vomit from a human that's been eating a shit load of mint leafs." I tilted my hip. "Happy now?"

He grunted, hi face contorting as he looked at his armor. I made him self-conscious. Poor medic. Then his optics flashed and he gave me the look. "Your not going to like your next systems check…" Which is why I have Mikaela to back me up and move the rosters until later where I can skip because of work doing runs or what ever. "And I'll make sure it stays where it is, sparkling."

"I'm not a sparkling." I grumped. "I happen to be fully grown and have my own sex life, thank you oh so much."

"And yet you still come complaining to me to fix your antenna's when they jam up." He gave me a smug look.

"Fuck." I rubbed a hand down my face. "Fine Vomitron, you win this round."

"Now that you two are done with your childish squabble, we have a lost comrade to recover." Papa rumbled. He turned and started towards the ship, his heavy steps making the ground shake and making him jump up slightly before sinking back down with a thump. "Ratchet, Nightstrider, roll out." We're not even rolling on tires… but I guess being several millennia old, Papa has the right to say just whatever the fuck he wants.

I vented and followed along with Ratchet heading after me. I put a little bounce in my step sending me floating for a couple seconds. Fluttering my wings made me feel like I was flying until I touched down onto the dusty surface of the moon again. I hopped along behind as they approached the mammoth hull of the ship, so huge in it's girth that it dwarfed Optimus.

As Ratchet moved forward to reactivate the doors, I leaned over and nudged my father. "Hey, you realize that this ship actually makes you look small for once right?"

"Indeed." He rumbled in a half amused tone.

As the door slid open with a couple creaks, Optimus moved in, followed by Ratchet and then me. Inside was… awesome. Sure, it made me feel like some tiny doll in a creepy doll house of horrors and dead bodies, but how everything was designed, the metals, the big fucking guns, even the slightly creepy dead robots in the chairs behind said BFG's were awesome to look at. In total, it looked like some grotesque work of art, and really, I actually think it looked cool. One thing though, it was dusty as hell with the moon dust. It got everywhere, and made me cough. My cough just sent another cloud up in my face anyways.

One Autobot actually looked to be painfully impaled on the controls of the gun in front of it, a mech it looked like. Another was impaled on another Autobots arm. Besides the dead bots, there were also miscellaneously placed body parts and armor. That was evidence enough that some missiles had hit the Ark, and hit it hard. It was probably the reason that they were all dead. Next to my foot, as I glanced down, was a part of a jaw with the bottom teeth and a tongue on the metal. I shifted my foot away. Yuck.

There was a whooshing noise as Optimus did something to a raised panel. The floor opened, and something that I recognized as Sentinel Prime from the movie began to swirl up in a chair surrounded by five funky looking pillars that were about the size of my knee to my ankle, maybe a little smaller. They were at least human size, so maybe five and a half foot, maybe six foot tall.

"His levels are faint." Ratchet rumbled as he grasped the red main central pillar. "He locked himself away to guard the pillars." He vented sharply and moved the pillars out of the way of Optimus, taking out some wire from his subspace and started to wrap the spacebridge pillars quickly together into one large bundle.

"Sentinel." My father rumbled, kneeling and hefting the old looking Autobot up. His bond opened and he instructed me to support Sentinel's head and upper body while he would take the thick and heavy looking tree like legs. Through the bond, I could sense how important Sentinel was to Optimus, and god forbid, it was going to be heart wrenching when Sentinel betrays us all. "Your coming home, old friend."

I vented and moved to do as my Father had asked. Sentinel was goddamned heavy too! By my calculations, the part I was holding onto was at least four tons. Sentinel was set with his back pressed to my chest, my arms looped under his, and his head lolling limply back over my left shoulder. Papa got settled with his hands holding under Sentinel's knees. And then we were off back to the ship, me grunting under the weight of the giant old robot before me and my Father moving along steadily under the weight of the limp mechs feet. Sentinel's stupid shoulder flap things I kept stepping on, and there for making me almost face plant many a time.

In another daylong flight back to earth, we were finally home. Sentinel was set up in a chair, and they began preparing to online him. Ratchet started with some repairs, and then enlisted my twins to paint him in his original colors of red and a whitish-gray color. The whole painting and repair took another two days, days of which no one was on missions so that we could all be ready to look our best when Sentinel onlined.

I personally did not give a shit, I didn't like him in the movie, and I don't like him now. He had been such a cocky bastard in the movie, all old and acting wise and all knowing. Bunch of bull shit if you ask me…

Tomorrow we wake Sentinel Prime up.

And tomorrow the hell officially begins.


	78. Black Chains

(_**PLEASE READ!**_

_**I'm tired… so tired… so tired of my grandmother, of how she acts around me, how she ridicules me for indulging on books and literature and because I'm not the perfect lady, how she expects me to hold a long and ignorantly stupid conversation on anything and everything, and how she expects me to just go willy-nilly along with everything.**_

_**Sorry the chapter is short, but I'm hurting with my hip and my femur where I almost broke it over the summer. You all remember Tiffany, my third butt cheek? Well, Tiffany is back with a vengeance due to the mishaps of a bad chiropractors appointment.**_

_**Hello my reviewers and readers. Sorry it was such a long wait and that I had ranted so much; family matters had arisen, and I was pretty much kept captive by them. Too tired mentally, emotionally, and physically at night to write, and it sucked. Anyways, happy late New Year, and according to the Mayan calendar, our last year before the world is supposed to end. Lets make this one count yes? And I hope to god, primus, or whoever is out there that I manage to complete GIBTH by then!**_

_**Anyways, enjoy~**_)

Today's the day that we're supposed to revive Sentinel Prime. My Adopted Father is excited, I can feel it through our bond, and he wants me to be excited too. Over the bond he's shared with me memories of when he and Sentinel used to work together on Cybertron, how they fought together to win the war, and back when the Golden Ages of Cybertron was under Sentinel and Optimus's conjoined ruling. Even Elita is excited, having also known him prior to his departure on the Ark. All the other bots are as well. Leo, Velocity, and myself remain suspicious however. I suppose I am to blame for the sparklings suspicions, Leo received them from me when I was venting privately to myself and forgot to close my sibling bonds, though I remembered the parental bonds and closed them prior. From there, Leo had shared his suspicion with me, and even managed to get Velocity suspicious in itself.

The other bots can see I'm apprehensive about this as well, though Optimus is too blinded by his trust for his friend to see my distrust. I have received no ridicule however from the others. The Twins feel my distrust almost as clearly as if it was their own, they have told me so before. My reason, for all who came asking why, was because that he was new, and there was no telling what side he could have switched too while he was missing from our scanners. I had also told them that while he was indeed a Prime, that they should remember the Fallen. It only took one wrongdoing, major as it may have been, one step out of line, for him to fall. Who's to say that Sentinel hadn't fallen in the time he was missing?

In all honesty, this is the least I can say that pretty much doesn't just scream out the truth that only I, and Primus, know. If I could, I would just scream it as loud as I could, but because of everyone's favorite meddling God, my lips are sealed tighter then a nun's panties. And I'm getting sick of it. But there's nothing I can do.

Sighing, I shifted in my standing position as Ratchet secured Sentinel to this giant yellow chair thing with Optimus's help. Sentinel had been repainted some regal red color with some silver and black highlights in random places that aligned with the alternate mode that Ratchet had selected for him. I was almost recruited to help, but I faked having a major headache. And guess what? I ended up getting one not even an hour after I had passed up the offer on helping Ratchet with Sentinel because I managed to give myself a nice whack to the back of the head while searching through a giant cupboard for a deck of cards to have my little hands play with.

A tug on my audio receptor had me turning my head to my right shoulder. I arched an eyebrow at Leo as he moved his hands up to the corners of my mouth. "Sissy!" He grumped, scowling at me. "No brooding! Smile!" He grunted as he tried to stretch my faceplates into a smile. "A brooding Sissy is a grumpy Sissy, and a grumpy Sissy means that you're easily irate!" Him and Velocity had been on my shoulders for the last three hours, and honest to god, they were being pests.

Humoring him, I let my faceplates slide into a comically wide smile that ended up bearing my teeth as I spoke. "If I have to smile," I moved my hand up and used my little hands to make Leo smile comically like I had, "Then you have too as well." I paused and removed my fingers. Then I arched a brow at him when Leo removed his hands from my face, letting my cheeks and mouth plates slide back into place. "Isn't irate a little bit of a big word for you to comprehend?"

"No." Velocity snarked from my left shoulder, where she is perched. "We're sparklings, not newsparks. We can think and speak like you, dumb ass."

"Watch your language brattling." I said. I moved my hands up and scooped both sparklings into my hands as I simultaneously moved forward towards my mother and the two other motorcycle femmes, who were all in a side room where they could see but where otherwise out of the way for now. Leo and Velocity began their little sparkling language speaking at me, probably begging me not to abandon them to their parents. I scruffed them and held them out to their respective parent. "Here are the little munchkins, it's your turn to baby-sit."

Elita scooped up Leo and pressed a motherly smooch to his forehead. She winked at me. "Alright, we'll keep the little darlings out of your armor for as long as we can."

"Revenge Sissy!" Leo called. "There will be revenge!" The feelings from our bond told me that revenge wouldn't be horrible. Maybe some feet tackling at best, a tripwire at worst.

Chromia winked at me as well and scooped up Velocity. She locked her arms around the young femme and smooched her helm. "No worries, we'll keep them busy while Sentinel Prime is revived."

I nodded. "Alright."

I moved back to where I could see the chair again, debating on whether or not I should even be here. My automatic instinct to what is to happen next is going to be to fight and defend. It wouldn't do too good for me to be attacking yet. It would probably be bad for me to attack at all.

Ratchet got Sentinel Prime all secure in his chair just as Sam and Carly walked into view with Lennox talking to them along with Mearing.

"Let us begin." My father rumbled. My optics went to him, and how everyone was gathering on the outskirts of the chair and the devices next to the chair. I watched Papa withdraw the matrix from his chassis, from a spot located near his spark casing. As he started to draw upon its power, he also started moving towards Sentinel Prime.

I moved back, where I could see everything, but also next to Ironhide, so that I was out of the way of the incoming tackling I knew would happen. My engine let out a low rumble, and I got irritated at the thought again. I heaved a sigh as my agitation continued to mount with my processor stewing on the forthcoming events.

"He's not so bad, brattling. Old and wise with a quick tongue to boot." Ironhide rumbled quietly to me. "Your acting like Red Alert. Does Ratchet need to check and see if you've glitched or gotten a glitch in your programming?"

"No." I said dryly, with a hint of snap in my tone as I shifted to cross my arms across my chassis. "I haven't got a glitch."

"Mmm." He rumbled.

"Sentinel Prime," My father boomed, excitement pulsing at his spark and traveling to me through the bond. He stood in front of Sentinel, the Matrix of Leadership glowing brightly in his left hand. He raised his hand back to slam it down. "We bid you return." His hand and the matrix met with Sentinels spark chamber.

Sentinel jolted, strange words garbled in Cybertronian spilling from his vocal processors. His body seizured in the chair, and then there was a whirr of gears and crunching noises as his optics onlined. In the blink of an eye, Sentinel Prime onlined his weapons system and lunged for my father. He tackled him to the ground, seemingly intent on running his sword through my father's processors. I could feel shock radiating through our familial bond as it resonated within my soul and churned into a fiery rage that fed my very spark. The twins could feel me, feel my rage, and channeled it to try and calm me.

"Hold your fire!" Lennox roared. "Hold your fire!" The surrounding Autobots froze, as if they couldn't believe what they were seeing.

My weapons onlined, claws sliding out on both my hands and feet to dig into concrete and empty air. My laser scalpel remained hidden. The Mini Compulsion Rockets in my door wings heated up, preparing to launch me towards the threat to my father at a moments notice. My shoulder cannons moved to go out. Then I moved towards the two Primes, intent on removing the threat from the one on top. My engine roared threateningly as the armor coating my body stood up, giving me some more volume to my body mass.

Ironhide caught me by the arm and then used his height and weight advantage to pin me to his chest. I struggled tensely; spitting out garbled curses and other noises until Ironhide moved a hand and quieted me down by muffling my voice with his hand. I hissed against his hand, wishing to god that I could shoot lasers out of my optics and smite down Sentinel from a distance so none of this shit would have to happen. My foot slammed down on Ironhide's foot.

"Sentinel," My father choked out. "Stop! It is I, Optimus prime! Its alright, your safe!" Sentinel paused at the name, drawing back and slowly retracting his blade.

"There is nothing to fear." Ratchet said. The other Autobots lined up closer within sight of Sentinel. I remained stuck in Ironhide's grip my engine gunning and growling angrily. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker funneled my fury away, sending me waves of calming feelings and love to replace the anger.

"We are here. You are home, Sentinel." My father said.

Sentinel's gaze moved around the room, scanning everyone, pausing briefly on the sparklings visible through the open door, and then continuing. He leveled his gaze with me, and I sent him a knowing but withering glare from behind Ironhide's hand.

When I got free from this bog black living manacle, there would be hell to pay. Provided that the twins don't steal me away for some calming interfacing first.


	79. Singing Distress

(_**Howdy folks, so I know its been several days since I updated :P and I wont be able to do much this coming weekend because my boyfriend demands my attention lol so ether he'll be at my house or I'll be at his house. Hopefully this makes up for it. I know the anger is slightly misplaced, but think of it this way. I'm writing away my anger in Nightstrider instead of doing them to my wall. Or a tree.**_

_**79 chapters! Whoah! We've come a long way haven't we? Well, if all goes to plan, we still have a long way to go as it is :P I plan on making it to chapter 100 at least, and hopefully have 1000 reviews before GIBTH comes to an end.**_

_**Anywho, enjoy this small act of violence and slight fluff with Sunstreaker.**_

_**Crappy ending I know :P but I wanted to end it before there was the anger she was feeling started up again.**_)

I was standing in the training room with my claws out, having not stuck around long enough to listen to Mearing and Sentinel Prime talk about this shit and that shit. Sunstreaker had escorted me here willingly, and the sparklings had tagged along to see me go fuck up a hologram. A large holographic Decepticon drone stood a ways in front of me; gouges in the solid holographic metal were prominent and seeping holographic energon that looked real enough to actually touch.

Hound, our hologram specialist, had installed these shortly after he got here. They were solid, and came in several different shapes; you could fight Seekers, ground bounders, or things frenzy's size. You could even have a specific hologram of a bot fight you, like Megatron for instance. It's all keyed into memory apparently but once it's been imputed into the system, it can't be forgotten. I know that someone had put in Megatron and each time someone new is put in the list reshuffles. I accidentally picked Megatron once, and I scared the shit out of myself. I admit it, but I ran screaming like a little girl from the training room when I turned around expecting to see a drone coming at me, and instead I got this beast of a mech coming for me with long ass finger-claws. They can't kill you due to a kill switch that stops killing blows, but the holograms are solid and can cause enough damage to hurt you immensely.

Regardless of the system, right now I'm facing a drone, or more specifically Chokehold, the bot that Sunstreaker had mauled back in Egypt. For a solid hologram, he was hella good for releasing the pent up anger and stress that is running ramped through my systems.

As Chokehold neared me, two foot smaller then myself and much less intimidating with my claws being slightly larger then the holograms claws, I growled and flexed both sets of my own claws. I was fighting only hand to hand for now, having found out previously that just shooting is not as satisfying as ripping apart your enemy piece by little piece. He charged at me, the torn black and silver color of his armor shifting to protect his fake self, and his hands raised to grab me.

I launched forward, my bonds closed so as to not distress my family at the rage circulating within my spark and body. I barreled into the hologram Chokehold, his body so solid and realistic that when my body weight made him hit the ground, you could actually hear the thump of metal on metal. His claws very simply scratched at me, grazing energon lines only enough to cause little cuts, not enough to cause much bleeding. My claws, both my toes and hands, tore at the armor in a savage frenzy borne of the desperation to defend my father previously from Sentinel Prime and my inability to do so due to Ironhide restraining me.

When I damaged the hologram Chokehold enough, he deteriorated into nothing beneath me, leaving my knees resting on the floor and my hands on nothing. Taking that moment to stand up, my engine gunning angrily, I let my gears loosen with a hiss of hot air. Then I vented hotly.

There was a clapping sound behind me. I turned, and low and behold, Sunstreaker was still standing there with the sparklings on his shoulders. He was leaning against a pillar the supported the roof. "Nice job babe. Feel better?"

"No." I rumbled. I let out a frustrated noise and raised my hands to rub my helm. "That didn't help me as much as I hoped it would." I rubbed at a rather sore scratch from the hologram. It itched irritatingly, only worsening my already depressing mood.

Sunstreaker moved the sparklings to sit them on one of the shelves for human watchers and such. Leo waved at me, along with Velocity. I gave them a tiny finger wave. Then Sunstreaker glanced at them. "Fraglets, go find your creators. It's the adults time to play alone now."

"Aw." Velocity protested, planting her hands on her hips like she had seen me do many a time. "Don't make us go away! It was just getting good too!" I let out a long sigh as she vented heavily at one of my bonded. I guess they really spend too much time with me, seeing as Velocity is picking up my habits.

"Yeah." Leo grunted stubbornly. "My Sissy is in a bad mood; I'm not gonna leave her alone without family, you being her bonded or not." He copied Velocity's stance, venting stubbornly at Sunstreaker.

He pressed his presence through my bond block easily and messaged me. '_The little monsters listen to you, send them off will you so I can help you relax?'_

I let out a long vent and approached. Settling so I was face to face with them, I set out my quickly thought up a short plan to make them scoot. "Alright." I vented. "I have a mission for you. The both of you know the cause for my stress, right?"

"Yeah." Leo said. He squinted up at me, temptation clear in his optics to ignore whatever the hell I'm saying and stay. "What of it?"

I gave him the best half angry half mischievous look I had. "Alright, then I want the both of you to trip him, and trip him good. I don't know how you always manage to get me, but I want you to do the same for him, and if they catch you, use the excuse that you were going to try and trip me when I came along whatever hallway you managed to trip him in. alright?" They gave me a disbelieving look. "Don't give me that look. I know you two can do it. It would make my day for me to hear of it." Leo took a moment to contemplate, where as Velocity just snagged his arm with a gleeful smile and took off while dragging my baby brother behind her by the hand.

As they left the room, I vented again and straightened in time for Sunstreaker to step flush against me and set his hands around my waist to rest on my stomach plattings. His hands gently stroked as he turned me around to face him. Keeping one arm holding me to him, he brought up his left hand and stroked my face as I settle my own hands on his chest.

"You need to calm down. Your spark is singing in distress to ours through the bond." He murmured softly to me. "Your distress is affecting our protocols. We want so _badly_ to remove the problem, to take away your distress, but we can't attack a prime without being accused of treason and sentenced to death." He pressed a kiss to my lips, lingering a little longer then most would in public. He fed calm and love to me through the bond, Sideswipe mirroring him along with apology at the fact he could not be there. Apparently he was charged with guiding the cause of my annoyance.

I sighed against him and leaned forward, resting my helm against his throat cables as he let out a rumble-purring sound. "I know." I sighed. "I cant help it though, the thought of how he tackled my father with no warning and threatened him just… gets my energon boiling in such anger I cant calm down."

"Then don't think about it." He offered. His hands came up and traced my door wings gently, knowing each sensitive spot that can make me melt. Essentially, it's a wingjob in a way. "You," he purred. "Need an outlet for that anger. And I'm thinking we torture my brother a bit with some sweet interfacing and leave the bond wide open so he can feel it."

"Your cruel." I said. "I would take you up on that offer, but… I know for a fact that Red Alert is watching us right now through the base security camcorders so we don't cause any such ruckus. And I for one, am not an exhibitionist."

He sighed. "Tonight then, Sideswipe has patrols tonight, and we can torment my brother and get him all hot an bothered."

"You know he'll get payback on us later, right?"

He winked at me. "That is the whole point, my bond."

I vented briefly and gave him a kiss. "For now, what do we do though?"

"Slag something?"

I did not even have to contemplate that. "Slag something." I agreed.

…

It was later by at least a couple hours when the door to the training facility opened, interrupting our match against a big bad ass. Sunstreaker and me made a fairly good team with some practice, working our way through the stronger of the Decepticon holograms. Our first duo fight sucked ass. So did our second and third. Fourth was okay, and fifth onward we did much better. But the first one, well, I got flung, and then Sunstreaker got flung on top of me, and then the Decepticon hologram dog-piled us.

As it was, this training session with my bonded, our little quips and the such, definitely took away the stress and most of the anger within me. Right now I'm feeling pretty good, but that's because of the little good-natured jokes, quips, and corrects to whatever the hell I do wrong from Sunstreaker. I'm not the only one who got it though; I dished it out just as well as I received it.

As Sideswipe dredged into the room followed by the cause of my anger, which oozed slowly back into my mind though not a major thing at the moment, I found my grip on the current Decepticon hologram's back slipping slightly. Sunstreaker had apparently faced a Decepticon back in his Gladiatorial days that had looked like one of earth's bulls that would be in a bull-riding contest. So, he summoned it up on the machine, and since it had only horns and hooves to gore at us with, we would only be using hands as well. Lucky me had gotten myself on it's back, and then the bucking began. Sunstreaker, the slagger, is standing a bit away and laughing at me. The bull had lost interest in him as soon as I got a hold of its horns.

"Son! Of! A! Bitch!" I bit out between my rattling teeth. My balance directors were going haywire, not used to being tossed about and abused like this. And suddenly, my hands lost purchase on the horns, and I was riding the bull with no hands and slowly losing my grip with my legs.

"Ride 'em cowgirl!" Sunstreaker crowed.

"Shove it Sunny!" I howled as I slid off the back of the bull. I scrambled too my feet, and then was off running as the bull pulled a u-turn. Using claws, I scrambled up the wall Spiderman style, and was well out of reach of the bull. The bull kept running, and then disintegrated into the wall in a shower of sparks. That was the end of that hologram.

As I clambered down, I waved at Sideswipe and bit back a glare at Sentinel Prime. Glancing at Sunstreaker, I scowled. "Yeah, leave me to run from the bull. You're sleeping on the couch tonight."

He let out a guffaw at me. "Your just mad that you scuffed that pretty little ass. Don't worry, I'll polish it for you."

I rolled my optics and planted my hands on my hips. "What ever Sunstreaker."

"So yeah." I heard Sideswipe intone. "This is the training facility, and as you saw, there are holograms to fight and practice with. Though they aren't as strong as the real bots they portray, they still pack quite a punch." I felt his misery and sent him comfort. Poor fellow to be stuck with Sentinel Prime.

"So," Sunstreaker drawled. "Who next?"

I twitched my antenna. "How about we do our final round with old Megsy?"

"Megsy?" He gave me an amused look.

"Megatron." I said. When I said the name, Sentinel took a moment to look at me instead of paying attention to Sideswipe. I ignored him, and nodded. "It would be interesting, and if we cant beat the hologram, well, we get our ass's handed to us until it shuts down. Then we can go nag Ratchet to bang out the dents."

Sunstreaker shrugged and moved to the consol for choosing. "Works for me. Next time we get to face Devastator though."

I flung my hands up in exasperation. "That hologram wouldn't even fit in the room!" I said. "You would have to downsize him until he could fit."

"Yeah yeah. I'd turn him pink too. An ugly Pepto-Bismol pink." Ah, the adventures of babysitting Annabelle when she wasn't feeling good, and with Pepto-Bismol being the only thing Sara left is to deal with.

I sighed. Glancing at my other bonded and his follower, I saw them both leaning against the wall in a safe zone, watching intently. Looking back at Sunstreaker, I watched him fiddling with the controls. "So," I drawled. "Are we going to go just hand to hand, or do we get weapons too?"

"Hmm…" he hummed. "I think we'll give Megatron all his toys, blasters and his Flail weapon. So, we can use anything except blasters."

I grunted at him. "I don't have any other weapons other then my claws and blasters and my laser scalpel. Only one of those doesn't allow me within flailing distance." I arched an eyebrow at him. "If you're setting it that way, then I call borrowing one of your swords."

Sunstreaker paused and looked at me. He arched an eyebrow plate. "Do you even know how to handle swords?"

I froze briefly. "…No."

"Then your not using one. It'll do worse then cut off your pinky." He shook his head, wiggling his head fin things. Sunstreaker pressed a button, and the starting sequence sounded off. "Just use your laser, I'll keep the big brute's attention."

I gave him a one-fingered salute. "Aye, Aye Capitan!" I moved to one side of the place as Sunstreaker stood across from me. Megatron would appear in between us in a moment, all imposing and gray colored with his freaky jagged teeth and crustacean like fingers.

I was right. He appeared seconds later, large and gray, well over my father's height and easily the largest hologram we fought today. He had his flail out; the long chain with the large spiked ball on the end began to swing as he twirled his arm, focusing intently on my bonded.

I eyed Sentinel for a moment, and then launched forward as Sunstreaker slid his swords out and engaged the hologram Megatron in a duel between double swords and a flail-claws combo. I slid my laser scalpel out, and extended it as far as it would go, which, like a light saber from Star Wars, was maybe four feet. Hardly anything for a transformer to fight with, but it works just fine for a behind attack.

I slid down in a baseball slide and slammed into one mammoth leg while hamstringing the other with my laser. Then I had to scramble as fast as I could when he swung his flail quickly towards me from behind him. He missed, and ended up hitting himself in the leg with it. He got a lucky hit in on Sunstreaker, and backhanded the golden mech away from him. Then Megatron turned to me.

I just about shit myself at how realistic it looked. The hologram began to swing his flail, getting speed on it going. I swallowed convulsively backing up a step. _It's just a hologram, it can't hurt me too badly and it's not even real_. Megatron took a step forward, his teeth grinding in what looked like pleasure. I took a step back. _It can't hurt me, it can't hurt me._ Megatron flung the flail, missing anything vital but giving me one hell of a bang on the arm.

"Son of a bitch!" I howled and backpedaled. The hologram cheerfully followed me, ever quickening its pace until Megatron started barreling at me.

If you've ever seen a soccer ball kicked through someone's feet, then you know what I looked like. I freaked out slightly, and dove between the wide set legs of the running hologram, and then just kept going. Admittedly, I was a bit of a chicken. I quite literally zoomed past Sunstreaker, who was checking quickly for scratches in his paint, and up the wall to hang from the rafters by my hand claws.

I felt like a piñata. The hologram Megatron kept swinging at me with his flail, and I kept pulling my legs up, seeing as there was no room between the roof and the metal rafter for me to fit in-between. Sunstreaker was my hero though, he came up behind the hologram Megatron, slicing at his legs until the fake 'Con turned around to deal with Sunstreaker.

I took a breath and aligned myself with Megatron's shoulders. Readying my laser scalpel, I spared a look at our spectators. Sideswipe was intently watching, while Sentinel seemed to be analyzing us. For the first time, I noticed a dent on his knee that hadn't been there when he was revived. Looks like the sparklings got him.

I dropped down, a flash of fear piercing my spark as I almost missed, it would hurt to hit the ground, and then I landed astride the hologram Megatron. My laser scalpel slipped right down into its skull and it began to dissipate.

Sunstreaker caught me when it disappeared beneath me. I gave him a quick kiss. "Never Megatron again." I murmured. "He gives me the creeps."

"Mmm. Alright." He agreed. "Lets go get our dents pounded out and get some energon."

I nodded. "Works for me."

Sideswipe applauded us, but Sentinel Prime stood stock still, eyeing us as if we had done the worst job ever. I met his optics and gave him a knowing look, to which he gave me a puzzled one. That's right, bastard. I know what you know, but you know nothing that I know.


	80. A Father Lost

(_**Hiya folks. Well, its an update~ and it jumps us head long into the third movie~ And leaves a cliffie :P**_

_**Thanks for reading and waiting patiently! I apologize for how short this is :P but my brain hasn't been functioning fully today, as we're flooding in the valley, and only part of my family lives on top of a mountain. The rest are in town, near a river.**_

_**Kudos to you if you know the website Nightstrider is talking about in the first paragraph!**_

_**Enjoy the actual chapter 80!**_

_**Also, a moment of silence for the family that was destroyed last night in the flood. Let us pray to what ever god is out there that the little child that was rescued survives in the hospital, otherwise the father will be all alone in his pain. A moment of silence for the toddler that was found around one o-clock this morning, floating at the surface of the water, and a prayer to the mother. May the dead rest in peace and make it to heaven, and may the living grieve, never forget, but also move on and live happy lives knowing their loved ones are in a better place.**_

_**Thank you.**_)

Today, I just knew, would suck. Why? Well, it all started early this morning, when my little brother came stumbling into one of the main hangers where I had just been staring off into space, playing a couple of games on the internet and occasionally reading random chapters of stories people have written about certain things like Naruto and all sorts of random shit. Some had been well written and was actually some pretty good shit to read, and then some made my processor ache while trying to read it.

Sunstreaker was sent on a mission the day before to some place near Beverly Hills California. Sideswipe, Mirage, and Bumblebee had gone with Sam, Simmons, and that other guy to find those Russian guys. I can't remember his name, the servant guy to Simmons, but he was the one in the movie who had lowered the bridge. I still believe he's gay. Regardless, Optimus was gone too, having taken Sentinel out into the countryside to show him the beauty of this world. As if that would do any good…. But, that was the hint that I knew today would be the day that everything was set in motion. Today the start of the end of my extended knowledge. After this was all over, then I wouldn't know what would happen next.

Somehow, that scares me; the future being unknown. But it also relieves me in a way. To not have to look forward and be able to almost count the days until an event happens. Holidays not withstanding in the event waiting.

Leo had let out a moan and dropped against my foot. The resounding clang sound had startled me, but it had made me look down. He had looked miserable. His optics had been dim, he was huddled in a ball of despondent looking sparkling, and even his armor had looked duller then normal. I had scooped him up moments later, letting him rest in my hand while he cuddled my thumb. He had been hot to the touch. Not hot enough to burn me, but Leo's body felt like it had been close to over heating. He had warbled something pathetically to me in his sparkling gibberish, and then moaned out something in English as he let out a little warble-sob.

"I don't feel good Sissy…" he had sniffed. I could hear his intakes hitching as he worked himself towards sparkling sobs.

Those five words had made me blink. And then I had vented sharply. "What have you done to yourself?"

"I had been messing with one of the humans computers." He warbled. "I plugged one of my wires that Ratchet had said I could hack with into it… And then my systems flashed, and I got this red flashing thing that said virus…" her let out a moan, one of his little hands going down to rub at his stomach plattings.

The little fellow had given himself a virus. That was something that we hadn't covered in my medical package programming. I had then turned and moved to take him to the med bay. He had started crying in my hand, and I had moved my hand to cradle him to my chassis. "We'll get you to Ratchet." I said. "He'll know how to fix this."

"I'm sorry Sissy…" he had whined faintly. I kept my optics on the look out for Humans so I didn't have any unfortunate accidents that involved flesh and bones lodged in my gears. I felt him sitting up, his body shaking and clattering noisily.

"For what?" And then I heard the telltale sounds of a purge, having had quite a few over my trip with insanity. Purge sounds sound different with each bot; and Leo's sounded like a cross between a cat coughing up a rather large and uncomfortable sounding hairball and a toilet flushing. Moments later, not even milliseconds really, something sticky, wet, and definitely warm had splattered all over the front part of my chassis and the back of my hand. I didn't know how much energon the little fellow had in him, or if it was just the splatter effect, but regardless, I had a glowing purple dripping stain all over the front of me. Talk about projectile vomit; I didn't even know that sparklings could vomit like that!

Good thing I'm not a sympathy vomiter, or there would be a fairly large puddle of the multi hued liquid on the floor. It also made me wonder where Elita was. I prodded the bond, to find that she was deep in a recharge cycle, having apparently been kept up all night by an excitable sparkling.

I could feel the energon seeping past my armor, both layers, and into the

Leo broke out into obscenely loud sparkling wails as he scooted across my energon-covered hand to get away from the vomit spot. Any humans who would have been in my path scattered quickly, trying to escape the eardrum-popping noise that Leo was emitting. "I'm sorry Sissy! I didn't mean to, I really didn't mean too!" He bawled. He let out another retch, and another spray of energon coated my hand. My antenna twitched and he let out another ear-piercing wail.

Ah, the infamous getting sick and then stressing so much because you vomited that you end up vomiting more. I had done that a few times as a human. Everyone had. My mother had simply held me, even when she herself was ill too, and rocked me while shushing me. Supposedly it worked on lots of kids. Apparently it worked on robots as well.

I shifted him to my clean hand and then brought him to a clean spot on my chest. "Shh, its okay." I murmured. "I'm not mad, kiddo. It happens to everyone at one point or another." He only wailed harder. I kept my pace even and steady, so as not to jostle the poor thing. "The more you cry, the worse it'll get, Squirt."

He let out a warble and gagged again, but nothing came out. He was empty, which was good for the both of us. I had entered the med bay, and had plopped the sobbing sparkling into Ratchet's surprised hands. "He gave himself a virus while trying to hack a human computer." I drawled. "And I know nothing on how to help him."

"Of course you don't, I never taught you what to do. Jolt knows though, incase something like this ever happens again and I'm not close enough to get there quick." Ratchet had cradled Leo gently in his hand, and ran an in-depth scan on him. "He just needs his virus wall updated. The virus was a minor one, and it seems to have run its course, but it's also taken its toll on the little mech as well. He's going to be worn-out and ill tempered, and susceptible to cold for a few days. I'll run a diagnostic to make sure that it fully leaves his systems."

I had nodded. "Alright."

"Go wash up," he rumbled. "Otherwise you'll be stained that color for some time."

…

And that brings us to where I am now…

Elita had arisen just about a half an hour ago, and was not tending to Leo with Ratchet. She was disgruntled with me, I could feel, because I didn't wake her up, or stay with my little brother. I didn't see the reason why I should have to stay there, seeing as he was left in the capable hands of Ratchet. I guess I'll never understand parents.

I'm standing in the general wash racks right now, trying to scrub this goddamned energon off of my protoform chassis. Energon, it seems, likes to stick to protoform skin. It also seems to like to dye the protoform skin-armor to be a kind of lavender color. I had all the energon off of my armor itself, but it had seeped below, down to my protoform and from there, into a couple of wire bunches. It was an honest mess, and as it is, it sucks… I don't even have my twins here to help me get the places I cant reach.

As soon as I felt as clean as I was going to get, I exhaled heavily and glared down at the mar on my chest plates. My protoform chassis, at the swell of it where there would be breasts on a human, was dyed a kind of purple-silver color. It was weird too. Kind of swirly, not all one even color. It was like some sort of funky alien tattoo. At least my hand wasn't stained.

I stepped from the racks after shutting off the steaming hot water, letting my body shake to remove most of the excess water on me. I vented as I moved to put my armor back into place. Maybe I'd change my paint color after all this… Maybe to something like a nice green… Nah. I look good in black. It's slimming.

Rolling my neck to work out any kinks in it, I left the racks completely clothed in my armor. It felt good to be clean again. Fluttering my antenna and door wings, I gave myself a quick stretch and prodded at my sparkbonds.

Sunstreaker was board out of his mind, having nothing interesting to do so he claimed. Then he sent me a picture of what he would like to be doing. Even in his mind he's a talented artist, so my cooling fans help give proof to that. However, another feeling; anxiety, and not the good kind of nervousness soon infected his boredom and warped the boredom away. Sideswipe's side of the bond, however, was surging with an urgency to get back to base. Something along the lines of defend, Decepticons, and Sentinel Prime. Sunstreaker reacted to his brothers feelings, and said he would be back to DC soon. That meant that he would be traveling at extremely illegal speeds.

I heaved a sigh. So now it seems was the time. I headed out front, towards the area where the treachery would take place. I passed through rooms, halls, hangers, and I dodged humans. Many of the humans that would find themselves hurt and dead because of Sentinel Prime… It makes me hate him just a little bit more then usual. Knowing that I could prevent the deaths I know is going to happen if I were allowed to speak and tell them everything I know… And yet, I'm not allowed to speak. So the deaths must happen. At least, after this whole take over the world is done, then I won't have any more secrets to keep.

Unless Primus has something planned, and is going to pull some sort of confounded strange card out of his ass and put it into play. One can hope that he doesn't have anything of the sort… but old robots have their tricks, and he's old enough to have millions of them.

Passing by one of the rooms, I paused to wave hello at one of the human who had waved at me first. Then I continued out into one of the hangars, and from there a stepped outside. The little off ramp that leads away from the base was unguarded, and the gate was open, preparing for Sentinel's return. There were armed guards outside, armed with a type of bullet that would indeed penetrate the Cybertronian armor, if shot in the right place.

And there I sat, waiting for Sentinel to arrive.

I honest to god only had to wait, like, eight minutes. During those eight minutes though, one of the soldiers had gotten the femmes rounded up, besides myself as I said I wasn't going to go hide, and hid them and the sparklings in the med bay. The rest of the mechs on base, which was quite a few, left to go help create a safe point for Sentinel to go through, as there wasn't a definite amount of Decepticons. Apparently Prowl found one about seven miles from the base, heading towards where Sentinel had been before. Currently I'm the only bot on base that isn't in hiding with the Sparklings.

I stepped out of the fire trucks way as Sentinel pulled through the gate and moved to the back of the little walkway. Ironhide followed shortly after, Sam and Bumblebee coming in after them. I stayed out of the way for the most part, as Sam rambled on and on about Sentinel and what the Decepticons might want him for.

"Ironhide!" Will shouted. "Protect Sentinel, get him locked up inside!"

Ironhide nodded as he transformed. "Consider it done." He took up a position in-between the gate and Sentinel, scanning the area as the other Autobots worked hard to get back to the base.

Sam rambled loudly. "You gotta protect him, 'cause he's the key to this whole thing!"

Sentinel transformed as well, taking his time standing up. "Indeed I am." He rumbled, shifting his body to look towards the gate and anyone in-between. "But what you must realize, my Autobot brothers, is we were never going to win the war." He looked away, his body following. "For the sake of our planets survival, a deal had to be made… with Megatron."

I kept my eyes on him, as there was a click of a weapon. Then Sentinel spun, in his right hand was the rust pellet gun that I was not familiar with. His hand clenched, and then the trigger went off. The bullet tore through Ironhide's lower region, sending him tumbling to the ground on his hands and knees. Sentinel was quick, as no one else had time to react, and fired off another round, rendering Ironhide's left arm and shoulder useless.

"Get back!" Will howled.

My shoulder blasters came to life, as I used my hands to shoo the humans into the cover of one of the several large steel storage containers. I heard Ironhide gasp, along with the sound of him rolling over. "What have you done?"

I heard Sentinel speak as I shoved one of the lingering humans in the spot where Sam and Lennox would hide. "I hereby discharge you from duty." The gun went off, and Bumblebee was thrown back with a loud thud from the close range blast.

I whirled with my shoulder cannons primed to fire. They went off, but missed when I had to dodge a shot that Sentinel aimed at me. Bumble was running, I could see, with Sentinel shooting at him too. Humans were dieing, being shot to pieces or being caught in the cross fire and being flung away. Sam and Lennox, I could see, ducked into a covered area that would be safe enough for them to hide in.

"Daddy!" I heard a familiar wail. I turned to see Velocity skittering out of the hangar, scrambling quick enough that she was half on her hands as well as her feet. "Daddy no!" Sentinel whirled to shoot at her as well, and I threw myself at the running sparkling.

Ironhide briefly reached for her, as if to protect her from the bullet, his hand disintegrating as he did so.

"Velocity! No!" My hands closed over her just as I tucked myself in for a roll. The sound of the rust gun going off was deafening, and then a blistering pain started in my shoulder and left arm as I kept myself rolling to a safe spot behind a large metal storage container.


	81. A Soul Saved

(_**Ah ha! No one suspects me to update so soon, no? Well, for one, this was just too much of a plot bunny not too~ and I had a lot of free time :P plus this chapter was already half written some time ago.**_

_**This is something that I've had planned for several months XD and now I get to put it into play!**_

_**Oh and any medical things I say are probably incorrect, but these are Giant Alien Robots! Their anatomy of the spark chamber is gonna be different then ours :P**_

_**Enjoy~ even though it's a bit short, lol.**_)

It was horrible; listening to Velocities tormented cries and sobs. She howled in my hand, thrashing, beating against my fingers futilely in the need to get to her father. I had her pinned in one hand, and was using my other hand to fling away the armor on my left shoulder and arm before it could melt away and burn into my lower armor. My pain receptors flashed, as did the bonds to my family. There was a frantic feeling from the twins, asking me if I was all right, and asking what the fuck had happened.

Then I lifted Velocity to my shoulder and just held her as she sobbed angrily, almost drowned out by the continued sounds of violence. Her sobs were heart wrenching, making me remember what it was like when I lost my father back when Megatron had killed him. It sent a dull ache of sympathy through my spark, my face twisting into a grimace.

There were explosions in the hangar, bits of metal being flung out the door along with some human soldiers. There were screams of death, terror, and anguish from some of the humans. Others were dead before they got the chance to scream. I had to tune them out from my audio receptors, and focus on something else.

So I watched my armor on the ground. It took its time disintegrating, the metal bubbling and boiling away into reddish orange flakes of rust and other stuff. The paint kind of withered away, eroding like paint would over time if it was allowed to do so unattended. Then it started at the center, falling into itself and turning into a powdery substance. The armor stopped rusting away though before it got to the outer edge, so it left about a one-inch ring in the shape of my armor.

And then the violence stopped, the death and explosions ending abruptly, and I heard the thundering steps of Sentinel Prime leaving. Once it was silent then, except for the roars of anguish from a certain femme from the med bay. I waited for a little bit longer, about a half a minute, and then I left the cover of the metal thing I hid behind. I let velocity down, and she went barreling out of my grip and towards the pile of rust. It did not look acidic anymore, but I was quick to nudge it with my toe before I let Velocity dive head long into it.

And dive she did. She dug through the rust, letting out little pleas and begs for her daddy to be all right. It damn near broke my spark to listen too it. Eventually, she paused, and then resumed with vigor. "Daddy's still alive!" she crowed.

There, in the pile of rust and little bits of the Iron Giant I once knew, was his spark. It was larger then my spark and a dull, dying blue color and still pulsing, though faintly now. The cables, main ones and secondary, were gone along with everything else, meaning it had no way to function now with no body or nutritional chamber to help keep it preserved. Obviously in the movie no one checked, therefore his spark had extinguished itself.

Velocity cleared the rust away with my help, and then she hugged it, even as the spark dimly flashed and glowed duller still. "You have to save my daddy." She demanded, looking up at me with damp optics.

I swallowed convulsively, doubt clouding my mind. "I would, Velocity, but I don't think its possible."

"You're a medic!" She wailed, pressing her face softly into the dull glow of the last remaining piece of her father. "Medics know everything! They can fix anything!"

I knelt down, running a tentative finger down her back. "I know, I know, but I'm not a full medic, and I'm not nearly as experienced as say Ratchet or Jolt."

"Then ask _them_ and fix my daddy!" The spark dimmed lower. "Daddy no! No, stay here Daddy; keep your spark glowing! _Daddy!_"

I let out a little noise and contacted Ratchet. '_Ratchet?'_

'_Yeah?'_

'_Ironhide's body is dead, disintegrated in a pile of rust, but his spark is still beating.'_

'_Wait for me to get there to help.'_

'_We don't have that long, Ratchet, just tell me what to do.'_

There was a short pause between messages, and then Ratchet comm. linked me again. '_Okay, since we don't have any stabilizers built, your going to have to hook his spark up to your spark chamber, and pray to Primus that your chamber has enough room for two sparks. Unless… is there another mech near by?'_

'_No, there isn't.'_

'_Slag.'_

'_What do I do?'_

'_Follow my instructions very carefully. Open your chest plates and spark chamber, and then take the secondary coraxic artery, its bright red you cant miss it, which looks different then the main one-'_

'_How do I tell the difference?'_

'_The main one has a smaller green cable looping tightly around the main red one. Anyways, take the secondary coraxic artery and hook it up to Ironhide's spark. It will be painful to you, but the secondary is just backup for your spark. It'll act as the main coraxic artery for Ironhide, and will stabilize his spark enough for you to finish. Now hurry, and then report back to me when you've done so.'_

I inhaled, and then reached for Ironhide's spark. Velocity didn't want to let go. "I'm going to save your daddy." I murmured. "You need to let me have his spark first."

"Daddy's fading away… daddy's going away. He wont stay with me and mommy…"

"I know," I cooed. "But Ratchet told me how to help him. Will you trust me with your daddy's spark?"

"Yeah."

"Then I need you to let go."

She sniffed and nodded. I took the dying spark into my hand gently, and then willed my chest plates to slip open, revealing my internals for the world to see. I looked for the red cable, and found it. Disconnecting it from my spark sent a flash of pain rippling through the bonds, making my family scramble and bombard me with questions. I pushed them aside for now and focused on my task. I plugged it into Ironhide's spark, not really feeling any differently then before. The spark in my palm however, stopped dimming, and began pulsing at a better pace, though it didn't get any brighter.

'_What next?'_ I asked.

'_Take the secondary sloital artery, which is the smallest cable there, and plug it into Ironhide's spark. Both sloital cables are green. This will synchronize his spark beats with yours, so that your energon can continue to flow smoothly through your veins. It should also theoretically connect his life force to yours for now until we can get him a new body built. Comm. me when you've done this.'_

It took me a little bit to find the little artery, as it was small and hidden quite well, but I got it plugged in as well. I felt a little jolt in my chest; it hurt painfully, like someone grabbing my spark and squeezing, as my spark and the spark I was holding struggled to synchronize. After a few seconds, the pain went away, and both sparks beat in unison.

'_Anything else?'_

'_Yes. You have two more things to do to keep him fully stable, and I'll finish anything else when I arrive back at base. First, take your Primary energon vein and connect it to his spark. Energon veins are blue. Your body will be able to function just fine with the secondary, but his larger spark will need the main vein to pump more energon through. Now this will cause a slight drop in your energy levels, and will make your need for energon to increase, even with that stuff that Wheeljack gave to you to make your body burn less energon and make it more efficient for your flights. Your body isn't built to handle a mech spark, which pulls more energon and power then a femme's spark, let alone two sparks. Make sure your safe before you do this, as you're going to inevitably feel your energon pull. Comm. me for the next when your done.'_

I swallowed, and unhooked the primary energon vein, which caused the secondary to visibly start pumping energon through it. That one didn't hurt too badly, but it felt weird and when I plugged the primary one into Ironhide's spark, I felt the slow draw of energon increase slightly. Ironhide's spark brightened in color, and I felt something brush at my conscience, just a tentative touch that didn't really give me much of a feeling or thought.

'_What next?'_

'_Take the primary lymphonetic vein, which is green and yellow and is what gives energy to your spark and your body, and plug it into Ironhide's spark. It's going to drain your energy largely, and is most likely to make you tired almost effective immediately. Take care to remain in a safe place as soon as possible. Optimus has went after Sentinel… Sideswipe will be there with you momentarily. I'm caught in a traffic jam, so I'll be a while. Place Ironhide's spark in your spark chamber as soon as you hook up the lyphonetic vein. Ratchet out.'_

I then unhooked the primary lyphonetic vein, pausing as I felt an energy drop until the secondary vein kicked in and brought my energy levels back up to normal. Pressing the primary vein into Ironhide's spark, I then jammed the mechs spark into my spark chamber. The vein took a few moments to integrate with Ironhide's spark, but it gave me enough time to finagle the spark to fit. Then I felt a grateful brush against my mind, letting me feel the gratitude of the tough mech who was using my body as a support.

Ironhide.

I watched the light of his spark grow until it was a healthy color, full of vigor and life like mine was. It pulsed and beat in harmony with my spark, creating a warm and tingly feeling within my chest plates.

Velocity was watching me with earnest, her optics locked on what I was doing and locked on her fathers ever glowing healthy spark. She blinked with every beat of the spark, which proved to be beating good and strongly for an older mechs spark.

As I closed my spark chamber and closed my chest plates, I could also feel the steady draw of energy; I could feel it draining away from me to keep the larger spark stable in my chest. Every twitch of my limbs seemed to take more energy then it had ever done before, each of my limbs seemed to weigh several thousand pounds more. My spark chamber itself is hardly large enough for any sized additional spark, but adding Ironhide's much larger one has given me a bloated, cramped feeling. I was already feeling like I could use a good long recharge, but I know that this place is not safe any more.

Chromia burst from the hangar, wailing and howling like a banshee as she dropped to her knees in front of the rust pile of Ironhide's body. She scooped up Velocity, cuddling the sparkling as she let out her own mournful wails.

"Chromia." I said tiredly. I lifted my hand and set it on her shoulder. "His body is gone, but his spark is still with us."

She let out a warble. "I can't feel him… I can't feel him."

"Give it time," I said. "He's drawing on energy from me right now. He just doesn't have the energy yet to contact you." I sure hoped that was the case. He sent me an assured feeling, brushing it just up against my processor briefly.

She paused. And then Chromia looked up at me. "What are you talking about?"

I drew her into a standing position and then drew apart my chest plates. It was a little awkward to show my spark to another femme, but I dealt. Motioning to the second, larger spark, I quirked the left side of my mouth plates up. "He's alive, and I'll be supporting him until we can get ether a body built or a stabilizer built."

She reached tentatively up with one hand, the other holding Velocity who was watching with honest awe, and then gently caressed her mechs spark. I felt his love for her brush against my conscious, and his want to be with her in his own body.

"Its really his spark." Chromia breathed airily. "He's really alive." She stroked his spark softly again.

"He loves you, and wants to be back in his own body." I said. I shifted to lean against the metal container, finding standing straight to take too much energy. I shuttered my optics with a bodily exhaustion, my frame shuddering slightly. I felt Sunstreaker and Sideswipe feed me strength and the will to hold on over the bond. I guess that they didn't get the message that the only one harmed, besides hundreds of humans, was Ironhide. My chest plates slowly drew themselves shut, protecting both Ironhide's and my own spark.

Chromia touched my arm gently. "Are you alright?"

"Just tired." I said. "His spark drains a lot of energy from my body."

"Is there anything I can do to help?"

I shook my helm, my antenna's twitching. "No, but thank you for the offer."

There was a commotion outside the gate, some sort of loud angry sound that had Chromia shoving Velocity into my hands and then taking a defensive stance with her weapons out. Sideswipe came barreling in, his optics zoning in on me almost immediately. He sped towards me on his wheeled feet, skating quickly. I quickly handed Velocity to Chromia just in time for Sideswipe to embrace me.

"Are you alright? Why do you feel so tired? What were those pain flashes earlier? It felt like someone was tearing your spark out cable by cable…" He jabbered. His hands roamed my body, taking note of the missing armor patch, which I seem to lose a lot of, and searching for any unseen wounds.

"I'm okay," I breathed. "I'm tired because I'm supporting Ironhide's spark with my extra spark cables, and the pain was from integrating my spark beats and synchronizing with his spark." His hand wandered to my face, and I let myself lean into him. "Ugh, I'm tired."

It was silent for a moment until Sideswipe spoke up. "I just comm. linked Ratchet. He says you need to get Energon into your body, and that shouldn't be a problem so long as the dispenser isn't broken." He shot a look to Chromia.

She shook her head. "The dispensers are fine, please, bring her inside to the med bay and I'll get a cube ready for her."

I nodded, and then Sideswipe effortlessly scooped me up. I looped my arms tiredly around his neck, and then he switched his wheels out for feet and moved to walk with Chromia. I let my head loll to rest against his neck cables, reveling in the fact that I wasn't expending any energy and I was able to move to where I needed to be.

When we got to the Med bay, I was taken to one of the rooms and gently set on the bed. Chromia was gone and back in a flash, bringing with her a rather large cube of energon. She handed it to Sideswipe, who babied me and held it up for me to drink, despite the fact that I protested it, seeing as while it was tiring, I could still lift my arms just fine.

When I managed to drain the cube, I still found my optics closing slowly. I tried to fight it, but bringing a spark back from almost being dead has taken its toll on my energy store. One hand closed over Sideswipes' hand, and my other hand lay limply. I felt something small skitter up my chassis and settle on my chest just before I found myself dropping into a light recharge.


	82. Gladiator's Promise

(_**Ah yes, sorry for the wait :/ been sick with some sort of lung problem, but I'm getting better slowly! Sorry for the long wait on the update P: it was the end of the semester, and I've been jam packed with work since I missed a lot while I was ill, and while we had that big flood.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy! I know the chapter is a bit boring :P but it gets us onto the right track towards the ship and the crashing in the Atlantic ocean!**_

_**We get to see some protective-possessive Sunstreaker. He's a little OOC, but I think you would be too if your mate was put in danger and there wasn't anything that you could do.**_

_**Also, pardon the fact that I just totally made up the location of the NASA base.**_)

My body kept my mind locked in a recharge cycle for quite some time. It was later in the morning, the next morning mind you, that my body allowed my mind to come back to the surface, and for myself to wake from recharge. And you know what? I woke up feeling tired, like I could use another couple hours of sleep. When I had been asleep, I could practically feel the energy Ironhide's spark was pulling, and I could feel from the tentative touches his mind brushed against mine, that he was communicating over his bond to his bonded. When my body, asleep as it was, couldn't afford to expend the extra energy to feed another spark while he was communicating, it put his spark in recharge as well.

I could feel my bonds to my family, but they were busy, very busy. They didn't notice my awareness across the bond lines yet, and for now, that works for me. I don't need to be bombarded yet, and I'm not aware enough to deal with the smothering that I just _know_ is going to happen once Elita gets her hands on me.

My optic shutters fluttered slowly as my mind crept into awareness. It took my mind a bit to boot up, but when I was as aware as I felt I was going to get, I could feel a small weight on my chest. The weight, my mind slowly told me, was roughly the weight of Velocity, and it was centered just above where my spark chamber would be. A light flashed in my peripheral vision as I slowly let my optic shutters slide back so I could adjust to the light.

: **Energon quantities low, initiate refill soon**:

I inhaled and exhaled slowly. Another weight registered, and another. There was a lighter weight resting on my left forearm, and then a much larger hand held my right hand tightly. Moving my head slowly, oh so slowly, I looked to the right. The bright golden armor of Sunstreaker glittered in the light as he held my hand in his recharge. A slow movement to the left allowed me to glance briefly at a sleeping Velocity, and a recharging Chromia.

My vents let out a hiss leisurely.

"Good to see that you're finally awake." I heard Ratchet say. The door to the room slid open, and in stepped Ratchet, a cube of brightly glowing energon in his hands. Or, at least I hope that's energon. The liquid in the clear energon cube was darker then normal, and had swirls of black, blue, and some type of green swirling within the purple-pink content. "You've slept for quite some time." Ratchet continued. He crossed the threshold, and moved to my right side. With the expertise of hundreds of millennia in practice, Ratchet disentangled Sunstreaker's hand from mine and set it in the lap of my bonded. He also took a moment to scoop up Velocity and set her in her mother's lap, and also free me from Chromia's grasp. "You've had us all worried, especially when you wouldn't wake up to the nudges of your spark bonds." Ratchet drawled, holding out the cup of strange energon. I didn't take it immediately. "Take it, Nightstrider. It'll help your energy intake, and should give you enough of a boost to get to the NASA base."

I took the cup gratefully and moved slowly to sit up. When I was comfortable, I took a drink. It tasted horrible, like most medicines seem to; even alien robot medicine. "NASA?" I asked. I knew, though, that we had been required to leave earth.

"The human government," Ratchet said with distain. "Has decided that they would be safer without us here, and that they should trust the Decepticons to their word. So we're being sent away into space." He tapped my chest plates with a finger. "Open up, I need to check and make sure your sparks aren't choking each other out." I took another gulp of the nasty energon and then let my chest plates slide open. I shivered briefly at the cold air when it brushed my spark, but did nothing otherwise. Ratchet shuffled some things around in my spark casing, clicking and making little whistles and other noises to him self as he did so. "Well, nothing has been disturbed, and your sparks look fine since I connected everything where it needed to go, but we're going to have to try and get that spark stabilizer built soon, otherwise I will have to do a surgical removal of his spark to move it." He sighed. "We don't have time to get one built though…"

I shrugged. "Don't build one." I said. "Just build the body. I don't mind going through a surgery"

"Whether or not you don't mind isn't the problem here." Ratchet said. He moved and closed up my chest plates, locking the mechanisms in place. "It's the fact that it's going to take me at least a couple months to build the basic protoform for Ironhide. The Cybertronian body isn't built for housing two sparks for longer then a couple weeks. It could cause irreparable damage to your energy capacity storage units if you're conscious through it all." He paused. "We'll just put you in a stasis when we get to a safe place." He nodded. "Yeah, that'll work."

I nodded and finished the cup of energon with a quick swallow, handing it back to Ratchet. When the cup was sub spaced, I blinked up at him. "Sounds fine to me." I could feel the energon racing through my body, making my sluggish motions more fluid and seem to take less energy then before. It's probably just a quick rush though.

"Good." Ratchet paused and lifted a hand to his audio receptor.

I arched an eyebrow plate. "What are you doing?"

"Receiving a transmission from your Father." He answered. It was silent for a couple of minutes. "He has told me to inform all of the Autobots in my med bay that there has been a change of plan. The humans are not to know, but we aren't leaving earth. He says we wont abandon the planet to its seemingly eminent demise."

"Boo-Fuckin-Yah." I said. I already knew that. "Send it to the twins and Chromia, because I think Sunstreaker is still too dead to the world to hear you."

There was a grouching tone from my right. "I can hear you both just fine femme." Sunstreaker stretched. "I cant believe you get us so worked up and worried like that, and then you don't even bother to wake me up when you online. How cruel you can be indeed. We even fed you our energy." He stood and planted a demanding and dominating kiss to my faceplates, trailing his hand down the side of my face. "You are in big trouble. You aren't going to leave our sights until this mess is resolved." He paused and blinked at me with deep blue eyes. "But I'm glad you saved the old slagger. It would have sucked for him to miss our ultimate prank on him."

I arched an eyebrow at him but nodded nonetheless. "I'm glad I saved him too. He makes awesome cannons."

"Indeed." Sunstreaker rumbled. He pulled me up further and hugged me tightly. I could feel the tightness in the cables and in his stance, reminding me of one of the memories the twins had shared with me of when they were gladiators back on Cybertron. His armor was stiff, his muscles tight, and he looked every bit on the brink of fighting anything that crossed his pathway. His chassis gave a loud rumble. "You better be glad I didn't tare through this entire unstable human compound to get to you. I had to stop myself from going and hunting down that slagging traitor the moment I stepped foot into the city."

"I'm glad you didn't." I said. "You would have gotten hurt if you did, and then you wouldn't be able to protect me as well."

Fierce blue optics locked with mine, spiraling to a darker blue then I had seen in a long time. Sunstreaker rumbled. "I promise, will all of my being, that if I am ever damaged, I will still be able to fight and protect you with the ferocity of the cruelest berserker." He didn't blink. "I will protect you will all I am, and so will Sideswipe. We will tear through anything for you."

"As I would for you." I agreed.

Sunstreaker turned and looked at Ratchet with every bit of him acting imposing and gladiator like. I didn't move from his grasp. "Now, how far does my bonded have to drive?"

"To the NASA base on the other side of the state."


	83. The Zanthium

_(Okay, so I'm having several issues with Microsoft Word, so pardon my inability to do things as I had before. Anyways, sorry for the wait. I found out that I have Sciatica, which has to do with the Sciatic nerve. Anyways, crutches are my best friends. It sucks :P and I have to go to physical therapy. I don't like therapists. After all, they are the rapists. XD corny joke is corny…_

_Anyways, check out this fucking awesome story called To The Moon And Beyond. The Author's name is Whatayamacholit, and this story can seriously yank at your spark plugs. It made me cry :/ but its freaking awesome! Really long though, just a forewarning, it took me a couple of days to read it with the chapters being as long as they were and with me balancing it between school and other stuff._

_Anyways, enjoy and pardon me if its short :P Microsoft is being a bitch and I'm in pain, so I have my excuses.)_

It was a long trip from the base to the NASA base. As of right now, we're almost there, roughly five more miles according to the message my Papa sent out to us. Anyways, it took us a good portion of the day to get this far because of our human companions. Several times we had to invade gas stations, Chevrons and Shells galore, for the humans to gas up their rigs. Ratchet would take that time to transform and shove more energon down my throat, until my tank, even my two reserve tanks, felt like they wanted to blow. Also that was usually when we would discus our plans over comm. links and bonds. We don't really have to watch where we transform any more, since the whole damn world knows about Cybertronians due to the Decepticon's little stunts in Washington DC.

If all goes well, which several bots had to reassure Red Alert that it would, we would be splashing down in the Atlantic Ocean, and then swimming to a deserted beach somewhere on the other side of Washington DC. From there, we would climb onto the land and then travel to the Decepticon strong hold, wherever that may be. Well, I know it's in Chicago, the windy city, but the rest of my Autobot faction don't know that yet. Anyways, once at the strong hold we would pretty much be kicking Decepticon ass. Well… I wont be. I'll still be in Chicago, but I'm stuck with babysitting duty to both Ironhide's spark, and the sparklings. It's already been decided, and I can say that while it sucks I don't get to fight and kick ass, I know that I would tire out too fast with my body drawing as much energon as it is now.

My engine rumbled down the road, the strange energon that Ratchet had given to me previously rushing through my veins like some type of robotic Red Bull, though it was wearing off fast. There were human military vehicles surrounding us and giving us a guideline to the NASA base, and we're forced to stay in a line-blob between them. Optimus is leading with Elita and Leo is riding in Prime's cab. Air Raid is strapped to a trailer that Papa's pulling, and behind that trailer is Jazz and Prowl side by side, then Mudflap and Skids, Bumblebee and Arcee behind them. Wheeljack and Que were next in the line blob thing, followed by Mirage and Red Alert. Hound and BlueStreak followed next, and then Jolt and Ratchet were next. Me any my little group brought up the end of the line. Chromia rolled along the left side me with Velocity holding onto her handlebars, and then there was Sideswipe on the other side of me, and Sunstreaker riding my tail.

'_Your falling behind babe.'_ Sunstreaker messaged me over our spark bond link. I was indeed falling behind it seems; the front of my hood barely passed Sideswipe's bumper. The nose of Sunstreaker's Lamborghini Diablo form brushed the back of my ass, giving me a little bump forward.

I sped myself up quicker, feeling both sparks in my chest beat quicker and harder to gain speed. With two sparks you would think it would be easy, burning double the energon and all, but it doesn't seem to be. Two sparks is draining enough; pushing myself to go seventy miles per hour for a long distance makes it even harder. Sunstreaker rode my aft until I was closer to Sideswipe's car door before he would let up and slow down.

'_Having trouble Princess? I can ask the Boss bot if we can slow down some. I'm sure he would understand.'_ Sideswipe asked me. He bathed the bond with love, and I returned it, sending the combined love to Sunstreaker as well. Sunny ate it up and gave me a spark hug over the bond.

'_No,'_ I said. _'I can handle it. Don't worry so much.'_

'_Its my job to worry, along with Sunny's job, and Prime's job, and everyone's job… But mostly our job.' _He quipped back. His spark brushed mine across the bond, feeding me some strength and love. '_He's just trying to keep you close to us so no harm befalls you. If I were behind you, I'd be doing the same thing Princess.'_

'_Yeah, yeah, yeah.'_ I sighed. I brushed his spark as well. '_I know, I know. I don't mind, but the ass tapping has to stop. I don't need a bright yellow'_ I practically sighed. Ahead of us in the line, I could see my Father turning to the right, into a rather large Shell gas station. The human cars all lined up to get gas while all the Cybertronians pulled off to the side to wait for the humans. I ended up following them, and we parked in the same formation we ended up driving in. My engine ticked in a tired overstressed way as it cooled down briefly.

Ratchet transformed first, and then motioned for me to as well as Chromia moved a bit away so we wouldn't step on her. My transformation was slow; slow enough for some humans to exit the black vehicles and walk over to gawk at us. The twins had transformed as well, moving to stabilize me as I wobbled upright. Ratchet's hands were on my chassis moments later, deft fingers moving my chest plates back before I could manually do it. Sideswipe and Sunstreaker used themselves as blocks so the humans didn't see I was carrying a second spark.

Ratchet clicked at me. "Your engines are running on hot," he observed. "I'll tell prime that we need to slow it down."

I huffed at him and shut my chest plates. "I can continue just fine at the pace we're going at now. Besides, we have what? Another two miles to go? I can do it Ratchet." I leaned my hip against Sunstreaker's hip and settled my arm around Sideswipe.

"If you continue to heat up, it will burn your energon count faster." Ratchet scolded me. "We'll take it slower." His optics lit up lighter briefly, and then his hands were shuffling through his subspace compartments. "Speaking of energon, drink some more so you don't have to refill as much on the ship."

I blanched. I was still overly full from the last energon fill up. The thought of having to in take more energon when both of my storage tanks are full is almost enough to gag me. I shuddered in my armor and pressed a hand against my abdomen. "How about we not and say we did?" The twins sent me confused feelings but remained quiet as they waited to see if I would drink it or not.

"Nonsense." Ratchet said. He had a hand in his subspace and was digging around in it. "If we refill your tank now, then we don't have to do it later." He made an a-ha sound and then pulled out a large cube of the funky colored energon.

"Ratchet." I said. "If you make me drink that, I will purge that nasty tasting energon all over you. And I will make sure it lands on you." My antenna pinned themselves to my helm as my stomach rolled unhappily at the sight of more food. "My main tank is full, and so are both of my reserve tanks."

Ratchet very simply quirked an eyebrow plate at me and held out the energon anyways. "Drink half of it and I'll leave you alone for now."

I grunted and took the cube. Steeling my stomach I sent Ratchet a squinted look. "One of these days Ratchet…"

He snorted. "In your dreams Youngling."

I sighed and swirled the cup of energon. "Do I really have to drink it? It tastes like shit."

"Yes."

"Fuck." I grunted. I inhaled and then took a mouthful and swallowed it. It slid down and settled heavily in my tank, making me feel bloated in more then one place.

"Come on Princess," Sideswipe chirped. "It can't be that bad can it?"

I held the cube to his lips. "Try it for yourself." Ratchet gave me a stank eyed look and crossed his arms. I rolled my optics.

I heard Sideswipe suck down a drink and felt him shrug against me. "It isn't that bad Princess."

I moved it for Sunstreaker to try, and he obediently took a rather large gulp. He shuddered against me, causing me to almost drop the half a remaining cube of energon. "That was the second most vile thing I have ever tasted; the first being Sideswipe's attempt to brew high-grade energon back on Cybertron." He took another draught and shuddered again. "Yep, the second drink is the worst. Primus Ratchet, what did you brew in this? Boiled retrorats?" Had Sunstreaker not been half holding me steady, Ratchet would have smacked him. You could tell by how Ratchet's hand twitched.

"Hey!" a loud human voice shouted up at us. "Autobots Ratchet, Nightstrider, Sunstreaker, and Sideswipe! You're holding us up! Transform back so we can continue to the base." I was extremely tempted to flip that human off, but I was stuck with protocols to follow.

Transforming back, after draining the last tiny half swallow of energon and sub spacing it, seeing as Sunstreaker had purposefully drank most of the cube for me, I relaxed onto my axels. Chromia and Velocity pulled up next to me again, and then Sideswipe and Sunstreaker switched places. Ratchet slipped back into place with jolt, and then we were off with the humans guiding us like little bodyguard cars to the president's limousine.

After a little bit, I felt a bump to my aft that sent me skidding forward slightly. Sideswipe sent me a mischievous feeling, and then I tugged on his bond. '_What the hell are you doing? I'm not falling behind yet!'_

'_Well, Princess, you said you didn't want a bright yellow stripe of paint on your delectable aft. Sooo, I thought I would give you a red stripe.' _Came smug reply.

I was silent for a bit. Then I comm. linked Chromia. :_Chromia?:_

_:Yes?:_

_:Sparkmate trouble.:_

_:Oh? What about?:_

_:Sideswipe's harassing me and wants to put a red paint stripe on my aft. Will you kick him when we get to the Zanthium?:_

_:Sure, after all, if he's pestering you, he's also probably pestering Ironhide.:_

_:Knowing the old badger, he's cackling at me right now.:_

_:Probably.:_

_:Indeed, Nightstrider out:_

When the comm. link shut down, I then nudged Sideswipe with our bond. '_I'm gonna sic Chromia on you when we get on the ship.'_

'_Liar.'_

'_I make a point not to lie. Remember the interface rod thing back in Egypt?'_

'…_Don't remind me. That still makes me shudder.'_

'_Me too.'_

'_Sunny?'_

'_Who else dumb ass.'_

'_You both are so weird, but that's why I love you.'_

'_I thought you loved us because we're awesome lovers who know how to rock you all night long?'_

'_That too.'_ Indeed. Well, who wouldn't like that? Regardless, I tuned them out when they started calling each other petty but hilarious names over which one was the best lover. I have to say that they're both awesome lovers in their own right, but I can't place one over the other. It would be like choosing your favorite child when they're nearly identical. Oh, never mind that was a bad comparison. Makes me feel like a cradle robber, even when technically the twins are millennia older then I am.

I revved my engine as we pulled through these big metal fenced gates and then pulled towards the behemoth ship that is the Zanthium. Further away, my optics picked up on Sam talking with Epps. I really wanted to walk over and say hello, but with the twins and Chromia boxing me in, I have the feeling I'm not going to get that chance to do so, and so I'll just go along with the flow.

As we passed by the Wreckers and crossed this large bridge like thing, we found ourselves under the Zanthium. Bumblebee was already here, having gotten here earlier then the group I had traveled with did. We pulled to a park here, and we all ended up transforming. Leo skittered out of my Father, and then wound between transforming legs and arms as the bots began to stand up. He was one of the first to greet me when I got fully standing, scrambling up my body like it was a jungle gym to hug my face.

"Sissy." He whined. "You scared me when Sentinel attacked. You were right. He was a bad bot. A very bad bot…" He pressed his face to my cheek, and I raised a hand to pat his back lightly as Velocity scrambled up to sit with her friend. Sunstreaker steadied my elbow as I wobbled, and then I heard a dull clang followed by Sideswipe's yelp of aggravation.

"Mama said she would do it." Velocity murmured into my audio receptor.

"That she did, that she did." I agreed.

Elita comm. linked me. :_Is Leo with you?:_

_:Yes, Ma', Leo's with me. I'll take him up into the ship with me so he can keep Velocity company.:_

_:Okay. Would you mind putting them in your carrying hold for when we crash into the ocean? Leo's almost to big for mine, and this way we'll only have to worry about helping one femme with special cargo to the surface instead of three.:_

_:Sure Mom. Did you go over that with Chromia?:_

_:On the way here, yes.:_

_:Okay. We'll head up now.:_

_:Alright, Elita out.:_

I turned to Sunstreaker as Sideswipe argued quietly with Chromia over something. "Can we head into the ship? I want to get settled in with the sparklings for the ride."

He nodded, his ear fins twitching as he took my hand and guided me to a large ladder. "You go up first, I'll follow you up and make sure you don't fall or drop a sparkling." I took a moment to look up and see where I was going. It looked like it just kept going up… There was a smack to my aft. "Hurry up femme, I'm anxious to look at your pretty aft on the way up."

I gave him a dirty look but took a hold of one of the rungs and started tugging myself up. It was a long climb, and I'm going to spare you the curse words and other explicit things that I said to my twins and myself over the bonds. When I got to the top and stepped as far away from the hole that lead outside as I could, I waited for Sunstreaker to come up. He popped in, and then guided me through this little trap door thing into one of the boosters. I was strapped to one of the seats with thick reinforced bands, and then I shoved the sparklings in my sparkling carrying chamber, much to their complaint. Sunstreaker took the seat on my right, Sideswipe when he came in took the one on my left, and Chromia took the one across from me.

And then we waited to take off, as everyone else filed in one by one. They also shoved Wheelie and Brains in my carrying hold so they didn't get thrashed about, as they didn't fit in the seats.


	84. Tital Wave

(_**Well, as it is now, I have the flue, which sucks ass. Anyways, enjoy the chapter, short as it may be, because the next one, if I am correct, we go into Chicago to kick some D-con assplates! Enjoy chapter 84.**_)

The sense of freefalling had my tanks, even my two reserve tanks, lurching unhappily. Ironhide's spark sent me feelings of intense panic, as he didn't know what was happening exactly. Both sparks within my chassis were beating and pulsing in panic, my spark being the one to drag Ironhide's into the panicked frenzy as well, sending the energon in my body rushing through my cables. My thrusters wanted to ignite on my door wings, I wanted to burst free of the falling rocket and soar into the sky to safety. I couldn't though. That wasn't the plan. Feelings of love and assurance same from Sunstreaker and Sideswipe as they took my hands in theirs, squeezing gently; letting me know that I was not alone, even though I could clearly see that I wasn't alone, as I had another Autobot in front of me.

It only got worse from there. The rocket pod thing that we're falling in started to flip end over end, going quicker and quicker towards the water of the Atlantic Ocean below us. Mudflap and Skids started screaming shrilly, uttering things in English and Cybertronian. Inside my sparkling carrying hold, I could hear all four occupants screaming in their various tones, Velocity unsurprisingly being the loudest one I could hear.

I let a groan float through my sparkmating bonds. '_I think my tanks just relocated to my helm… Ooh I'm going to purge.'_

'_No your not; we're going to be okay,'_ Sunstreaker nudged me over our bond. He wrapped me in his feelings of protection and love. '_Nothing will happen to you under our protection and watch.'_

'_I know.' _I said. My helm jerked forward and then slammed back as the rocket pod jerked sharply, sending a dull ache through my processor._ 'It just, I don't like this feeling. It feels like we're falling to our deaths.'_

'_You know, Princess,' Sideswipe drawled. I heard his helm thump back against the metal wall behind us, and gave that we aren't. Besides, we'll impact with the water in 8.009 seconds. Then its just some gentle floating in the water, and we can leave and head for the beach.'_

'_Yeah.'_

Gentle floating my giant mechanical metal ass. There was a loud outcry from just about everyone as we hit the water with the force of an elephant thrown off the space needle. Water stayed out from within, but we were tossed about in the waves, our little capsule thing rolling, rocking, and bobbing like a buoy in a hurricane; we the occupants inside being shook up enough to feel like we are in a washing machine. I know the motions were sending my stomach rolling, and at that moment I wished I could purge the ocean sloshing within me. I almost did, save the fact that it would have flung _all_ over everyone, including myself.

When the rocket cubby stopped flailing roughly about in the water, I all but sighed in sweet seasick relief as my tank stopped sloshing as much. I had managed not to let myself purge. In my flashes of fear during the fall, my body had sucked energon down, and now my tank actually had room to slosh, much to my displeasure. We waited on the short and chubby looking Wrecker, Leadfoot I think his name was, to open the door, some of us waiting less patiently then the rest of us. He pried open the door, an ominous hiss sounding out as we depressurized and the oxygen stabilized and filled our intakes with fresh salty tasting air. Sunlight shown through the door, and Leadfoot gave a cheerfully crow as he hit a little red button. There was a strained conjoined hiss, and then all our little roller coaster seat strap type things sprung up, releasing us from our constraints. As everyone stretched, I watched Leadfoot drop a bunch of dark blue things that were about the size of a slightly larger minivan.

I suppressed myself from bolting out of the little craft, and waited patiently until it was my seats turn to leave. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe escorted me out, Chromia following shortly along with a mess of other bots in a commingled mess. The mass of bots moving sent the floating rocket into a rocking motion, and it made me anxious to get into the damn water and off this floating death trap. Outside the craft, the device things that had been dropped were floating in a large mass. Jazz was holding onto one, and pushing another towards the little rocket thing that I was perched on. Prowl followed, also holding one and pushing another.

"What are those for?" I asked quietly as I was gently tucked into Sunstreaker's side.

"Floating." He answered. Sideswipe plunged in, snagging Prowl's extra floating thing on the fly. He sunk briefly, before it bounced him back up, making hip spit out some greenish blue salt water. "In case you haven't noticed Babe," he chuckled at me. "We're giant and made of metal. We'd sink faster then a rock without something to keep us afloat."

"Ah." I mused. Sunstreaker handed me down, holding onto my hands to dangle me over the edge. Jazz chuckled at me as my toes wiggled, reaching for the floatation device that Sideswipe was helping the shorter mech hold. My hands were suddenly rendered empty as Sunstreaker let go. My lower half plummeted into the water that was much warmer then the Oregon Pacific Ocean water, a loud yelp escaped my vocal processor, and then my hands wrapped around the surprisingly sturdy floating device. My head submerged briefly, and then the device brought me to the surface again. "Sunstreaker you ass!" I spat out a mouthful of salt water, the nasty tasting stuff. "I can't believe you dropped me!"

He let out a dark chuckle, his head fins twitching, and winked down at me with a suave and sexy grin. "Then watch what I do to Sideswipe." He took a couple steps back out of my line of vision.

"Sunstreaker!" Sideswipe howled. I watched as he started backpedaling with his floatation device, it not doing much to help him. He flailed, kicking out and trying to put the floatie between him and his seemingly deranged brother. "Your off your rocker, slag it! No! Not the paint!"

There was a shadow, and then Sunstreaker landed on Sideswipe and the floatation device. They sunk briefly, before popping back up again, both spitting out mouthfuls of water. I had to spit out a mouthful because the wave that Sunstreaker caused had gone into my face. Note, salt water burns open optics. In Cybertronian, they both started squabbling about this and that as they paddled away, both I could see were also keeping an eye on me as well. Chromia slipped in the water behind me, along with Arcee. They both went and stole Prowl's floaty, and Prowl moved over to bunk with Jazz. We padded out of the way for more mechs to drop in the water, though I made sure to bump some of the floaters towards the ship thing. When I managed to reach the twins, and where everyone was grouping, I felt tapping on the inside of my sparkling hold.

Hauling myself up further onto my floatation thing, to the point there I could rest my entire upper half and hips on the damn thing and kick my feet. It was wide enough, or at least the one I was on, for me to rest my body on it and my arms on the sides. My chest plates slid open, and my sparkling chamber popped open.

Wheelie draped himself out, gasping and making all sorts of noises. "What sort of dicked up idea was it to shove me and Brains inside a pretty femme! With fucking sparklings in here to boot!" He howled. "I would have been fine outside!"

"You would have gotten beaten off line in the rocket as it came down," I pointed out to him. "That's why you were shoved in my sparkling hold."

"I'm a grown mech, damn you, you insufferably hot bitch! Not some sparkling to be shoved in a hold!" He grouched at me. His little red optics shuttered angrily at me, and he stamped a little wheeled foot within me. I could hear the other three occupants laughing lowly at him. "It wouldn't have bothered me so much if I had gotten a good fondle of a pretty femme's spark, but oooooh nooo! Don't give the little ex-decepticon any tail! Shove him in with the damn sparklin's and hope he's happy!"

"And that's why your acting like a sparkling, eh Wheelers?" Jazz cackled near me.

"'Ey! You with the little man complex!" Wheelie growled. "Why don't you just shut the fuck up before I go get a step ladder and slap your ass in the face!"

"Who's the one with the little man complex now?"

"Hey!" I snapped. "Enough! The sparklings minds are already poisoned enough, they don't need to hear your jabbering to add to it." I glanced at Jazz. "Really, you get rallied by someone that you could probably sneeze on, and he's go flying? I'm ashamed shortstuff, I really am."

Jazz merely nodded at me, kicking past me and tugging my raft along slightly, so that I was closer to the twins. Prowl said nothing and aided the shorter silver mech. Jazz gave my shoulder a good natured smack when he let me go and paddled farther off with Prowl. Wheelie said nothing as well, brooding silently.

"Hey little bolt!" Wheelie's head zipped in the direction of my twins as they addressed him. Both were leaning upwards menacingly, armor fluffed and optics flashing as they zeroed in narrowed optics at Wheelie from where he was visible in my chassis. "Stop talking to our femme as if she's yours, or you wont like the consequences!"

Wheelie hissed at me. "What ever. Tell them I'll leave you alone." When I transmitted what he said, the twins seemed calmed briefly, and went back to bickering with each other, as well as sending me love and possessiveness over the bond. They also sent me an option of what they could do to wheelie if he harassed me, which was an option that I quickly had to veto before they could get more ideas from the first one. "Now, pretty female, can you let me down? I don't like being in here with the sparklings, it's degrading!"

I arched an eyebrow plate. "Well," I said. "If you want to ride out here, be my guest. I'm not in charge of you if you fall off."

He gazed around a bit. "No, I think I'm good, I'm good." He retreated. Leo moved and waved at me, along with Velocity, and then they all retreated to the back of my hold. Brains peeked out briefly, and then disappeared back inside as well as hit little creepy hair things started to spark and smoke. I shut my plates just in time to hear a slightly frightened wail from Jazz.

"Tidal wave!"

I looked over just in time to see my Papa pretty much fail at a cannonball, sinking along with several of the floaties. Then came the wave. It sent us all tumbling through the water, clinging to our floaties. When all the swirl stopped, we were all spitting out water, and my Papa was treading water with four floaties tucked under his arms, and Elita-1 perched laying across his shoulders.

There was a whistle from Bumblebee, and some sort of clip played loudly. "10 out of 10! Good dive, good sir, good dive!"

When everyone was in the water, about a half an hour later, and all important weapons and ammo had been subspaced, and even AirRaid was in the water much to his displeasure, we started paddling towards the shore, which Hound said was roughly three miles west of our position. Everyone ended up making waves, which if you weren't braced for it, you would get thrown about as if you were in a wave pool. Papa was especially bad about that. Ratchet also made sure that he was my floatie buddy, but brought his own floatie. He wanted to make sure that I didn't lag, and when I would tire, which was quite frequently I'm embarrassed to say, he would take up the slack and tug me along behind him. The only time he would let go when I tired, was then he would trade with one of the twins, or if Papa slipped and blundered, sending up wave after wave until he righted himself.

Ratchet took time every so often to make sure that the salt wasn't damaging anyone, and also took time to shove that nasty high-energy energon down my throat. The first time he had tried to make me drink it was hilarious, even though it probably damaged the environment a bit. Papa had been simply swimming, lost a floatie, and had flailed while trying to retrieve it. A wave had been sent, and had made Ratchet splash the energon into his own face. He said that the energon was the most disgusting thing he had tasted, but he didn't, care, I still had to drink it. So he pulled out another one, much to my dismay.

When we arrived on the beach at around 8:52 at night, which was barren of all life and surrounded by sheer cliffs and had soft white sand that bled into thick soft grass, Wheeljack went around collecting the floatation devices, and then deflated them before shoving them in his subspace. I was also allowed to unload my cargo. I was guided to the grass, my legs were killing me after all that kicking and peddling and the extra spark making my body work harder because everything feels all out of whack, Leo, Velocity, Wheelie, and Brains were set down after I was seated. Wheelie hurried away under the glares of my mates to go bother Ratchet, and Brains moved to follow him. Leo hugged my foot gratefully, Velocity scrambling up to give me a chest hug, and then both sparklings hurried to their respective parents. We would be resting here for tonight, before heading out for Chicago in the early morning, at around four our five according to Optimus. Apparently one of them was listening to the radio, and there was a broadcast that had went out, warning people to escape from the Windy City due to giant evil alien robots attacking the city, taking over to build a strong hold or something.

I settled down against a side of the cliff as Hound, Que, and Wheeljack set to putting up a signal cloak to keep us hidden from enemy sights. My twins settled on both sides of me, Sunstreaker shifting me to where I laid stretched out on the laps of both of my bonded mechs. My helm rested on Sunstreaker's thigh, where he set to massaging my arms and chest plates softly, his hands pressing at just the right pressure and moving the plates in circles so that it loosened the wires and cables below that. My legs draped over Sideswipe's legs. Sideswipe is a miracle worker when it comes to massaging legs. His hands press and rub in rhythms, and those rhythms are heavenly. It was almost enough to put me to sleep. Ironhide's spark was also tired out, and I could feel him already slipping into recharge.

"Get some recharge, Princess." Sideswipe patted my thigh, and then continued to rub it with one hand as he worked my calf with his other.

"I will of you will." I murmured. My optics shuttered closed, and I gave a soft and content sigh.

"We both will," Sunstreaker rumbled softly next to my audio receptor, causing my antenna's to twitch towards the noise. "After we give you a rub down. Your body is tired; you shouldn't be doing this much activity yet. You shouldn't even be coming with us to Chicago."

"I'll be fine." I said slowly. "I'll stay away from combat, I promise."

"I'm sure you will." They both murmured. All sounds faded off as I drifted towards recharge. What a roller coaster ride it was for today.


	85. Kindred Souls

(_**Much apologies on my part, I've been slacking on updating :P been busy with school, my friends, getting over being sick, my boyfriend, my Mother losing her job, etcetera, but I'm feeling better now~ Oh, and check out my profile. THERES A NEW PICTURE OF NIGHTSTRIDER by E-dowely. And as such, I am extremely thankful to her for making it for me.**_

_**BTW it has happened. You'll see when you read.**_

_**Thank you, all of you, for reviewing all this time! 737 reviews! That's a lot! It makes me feel especially good that you all had such kind words, give or take one or two people near the beginning.**_

_**WARNING: SOME CONTENT OF THIS CHAPTER MAY DISTURB THE MINDS OF SOME PEOPLE. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.**_

_**I suppose I've kept you all waiting long enough; enjoy chapter 85!**_)

A couple days ago we heard a transmission to the location of the Decepticon strong hold in Chicago, shortly after we had reached a beach, which we had found out was in New Jersey. It took us a day and a half to get to Chicago, mostly due to the fact we had to swing back through the abandoned base in DC and steal away Papa's trailer, and we also only stopped three different times for us all to refuel. Energon had been practically poured down my throat, and my tanks were filled to the point of pain every time we stopped. But, the times that we did stop was when my tanks were nearing the empty, even my reserve tanks. It bothered Ratchet to no end that no matter how much of the nasty energon I consumed, which was quite a lot since he had made hundreds of batches for such occasions, that my tanks were almost empty each time we stopped. By the time we made it to Chicago, which was an interesting trip with my father pulling a military plane, I was dead tired but I would still find a little strong hold to hide away in with the sparklings and maybe a few humans if I found any. We also got plenty of stares from civilians on our way here, much to Air Raid's amusement and my Papa's dismay. It was difficult enough staying under the radar now that humans have energon detectors, though they'd probably assume that we're Decepticons due to our nice little faked deaths, we didn't really need civilians getting caught up in this mess as well. Detours were frequently taken too keep us away from most of the police, but some were inescapable though they didn't bother me.

When we reached Chicago, the sparklings had been loaded up into my sparkling chamber once more after I was fully transformed. Swiftly I was pulled to Sunstreaker as he completed his transformation before his brother. He lip locked me, gently caressing his smooth metal tongue over mine; twining in a tight tongue hug thing as he flooded the bond with love and undying devotion. The surrounding folks gave us our privacy by ignoring us and chatting amongst themselves. When we parted, Sideswipe stole me away for another chaste and loving kiss. His tongue too trailed sweet trails over my tongue and mouth as we caressed each other with the smooth flexible organ. Not every French kiss has to be a battle for dominance.

"You know," I said as we branched apart. "I really hope this all ends well. I really don't want to be the sole Autobot left to raise two possibly mentally insane sparklings…"

"You wont ever be." Sunstreaker gave me a soft and loving nuzzle. "We'll win this, and come back on one piece."

Sideswipe gave a chuckle and kissed my cheek. "Well, maybe two. Depends on whether or not one of us looses a finger or foot. You know us, something unimportant always falls off." His fingers rubbed up and down my sides, massaging the metals in a slow and rhythmic pace. Sideswipe traced little designs on my metal skin, not with too much pressure or to little pressure.

I gave a rumbling chuckle. "Indeed." I said. "Try and keep the limbs and armor on boys; shedding is gross and totally a turn off." I shifted my gaze to Ratchet as he moved towards me, waving to catch my attention. "Yes?" My voice ended with a slight hitch, as Sunstreaker sucked a throat cable into his mouth.

Ratchet subspaced some form of unfamiliar Cybertronian tool and waved it at the twins. "Shoo, shoo you little glitched ruffians. I need to speak with your mate, and she needs to be able to use her hands and pay attention without you two molesting her." He snapped. Sunstreaker grunted and moved back, along with Sideswipe, to flank me and keep a watch out. We were entering enemy territory after all.

"Sunstreaker, Sideswipe." My papa called, his arm waving slightly as if to beckon them forwards to him. "Come here, we're moving out in groups and the both of you are coming with me and Ratchet. I need to debrief you on our rout."

Sunstreaker gave me another nuzzle. "Until we meet again, my sweet love."

"Princess, we'll see you as soon as we kick some Decepticon aft!" Sideswipe chuckled. He gave my aft a grab as he retreated out of smacking range.

Ratchet coughed as I huffed, my doorwings flicking and my antenna pinning to my head. Unfair. "Are you quite finished, brattling?"

"Sorry."

"As I was going to say before your pain in the aft father so unkindly interrupted me." Ratchet opened his subspace and pulled out a stack of closed energon cubes. "Here, put these in your subspace for later. I don't know how long this battle will take; so I need you to be prepared incase your tanks start to get low and I cant get to you." He also subspaced a couple, like twelve, regular energon cubes and stacked them on top of his pile of the high content cubes of energon. "Take these as well. If you run into any injured Autobots, repair them the best you can and feed them this. You can also feed the sparklings with it as well as soon as you get to a safe enough place; they're due for a feeding soon anyways." He slipped a few straws into my hands. "The cubes are too big for them, so have them drink it out of these."

I nodded, accepting both of the types of energon, putting them in my main subspace where I wasn't likely to forget about them for a while. "Alright. I'll try and secure a safe building for us to retreat too if anyone needs to, or if anyone needs serious repairs."

Ratchet surged forwards and grasped my shoulders under his palms, his eyebrow plates drawing together and his optics darkening. "Nightstrider, listen to me," he said. "Your not to engage the enemy unless you cannot get away from them. At no time what so ever are you to deploy your Mini Compulsion Rocket thrusters; not only will that attract noise and attention to yourself and the sparklings, but it will also tire you out, making escape difficult. You have to stay safe; you are the daughter of our Prime, and you're carrying the spark of not only one of my dear friends, but you also guard the new generation of future Autobots. Promise me you won't fight unless you and the sparklings are trapped with no way out."

I nodded. "I promise."

"Autobots!" My adopted Father called. His voice drew all our attention, and the optics of all Autobots present focused on my father's lofty frame. "Now is the time we strike back, to protect the planet we have come to call home! I have heard that Samuel is heading into the thick of this human city. We must stop Sentinel Prime from activating the pillars, but we need to find Sam first. We will split up into six groups! Ratchet, Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and Bumblebee will go with me. Wreakers, your together. Jazz, Prowl, Red Alert, Hound, you are a group. Que, Mirage, Jolt, you are together. Arcee, Chromia, Elita-1, and BlueStreak, you are another. Air Raid, Wheeljack, Mudflap, and Skids will make up the final group. Stay safe, stay under the radar, and locate Samuel." Papa's optics roved the crowd of Cybertronians until his optics met mine. He gave me a hug over the bonds. "Nightstrider, your mission is to get to a safe place undetected and remain there and in contact. Protect the sparklings and yourself at all costs, and save any humans that you find." His gaze left mine. "Now," he said. "Let us begin!"

…

For a while I had traveled with Air Raid, Wheeljack, and the little annoying twins, but I branched off from them shortly after we got further into the city. As for the city, it was in total chaos and carnage. Dead humans, dogs, cats, innocent beings cut down just for the cause of slavery littered many of the streets, having fled to places long thought to be safe. I had come across a church not long ago. It horrified me, what I saw. Children, ranging from newborns, infants, toddlers, eight year olds, to high school kids, in piles lying dead and dismembered, bruised and bloodied, some parts of their bodies burnt and blackened from various little bonfires that had been started. Adults were on the other side, the Decepticons having taken their sweet time in killing and sorting them one by one. Monsters, the whole fucking lot of them. Some of the bodies were fresh, and there was a still twitching infant. I know, because I thought it was alive and so I checked. I was sorely wrong; nothing can live with only half its body.

There was even a poor homeless man that was disemboweled and hung from a lamppost.

I snuck along an alleyway, my back and chassis touching the walls as I slid through it. It wasn't my most wanted choice of hidey-hole, but I had heard Decepticons marching up ahead. As I neared the opposite end of the alley, I poked my head out just slightly. The street was clear of anything living, smashed cars and abandoned cars littered the street way as well. There was an occasional blood smear, I noticed as I moved out of the alley and down the street. I had to sidestep a splotch of blood that had a severed leg in it. Three steps later, I found the woman it belonged too. I traveled for a bit through the city blocks, avoiding blood splotches to the best of my abilities. I couldn't find anything or anyone that was still alive, save the Decepticons I had to dodge on multiple accounts. Apparently the Autobots were causing quite an uproar, and all the Decepticons were fleeing to find them all.

I found myself tucked into a half collapsed small warehouse type thing, having moved several pieces of the rubble to create a pocket space that was large enough for three of me to stretch out comfortably in. I would have to duck down just barely to get in and out, but the way I piled up the rubble made it completely invisible from the outside. It would also serve as a defendable space, and could be a good field med bay if any Autobots come my way. I did, however, have to use the hood of a small Subaru car to scrape the smashed remains of what looked like three people out of my little makeshift hide out. I moved them into an adjacent building and left them there.

Opening my subspace, I pulled out a cube of my energon and a cube of the regular grade energon. I set them on a slab of concrete, and then opened my chest plates. The black and multicolored flame painted metal slid back to reveal my protoform chassis, and from there, my protoform chassis slid open. I popped open my sparkling chamber and held my hands up for Velocity and Leo to crawl on. Leo crawled on first, burying his feet in the cracks of my armor on my hand, and then leaned over and helped Velocity onto my hand. When both sparklings were situated on my hand, I then lowered it to my lap and they stepped onto my thigh armor.

"Where are we?" Velocity asked, blue optics gazing about. I saw the light of their glow lingering on the small red drips that the smashed humans had left as I had removed them. As she glanced back up at me, I saw apprehension in her gaze. "Are we safe where ever we are?"

I shrugged slightly, moving my arms over to grab the energon. I set mine next to me, and then set the sparklings energon on my legs as well. "Currently we are eight blocks down South Seventh 'N Marlin Street, eight blocks from main street Chicago. As for safety, we're as safe as we're going to get here in the Decepticon infested windy city." Shuffling around in my sub space compartment, I located the straw like things for the sparklings to use. "Here you go kiddos." I said, plopping the tube like straws into the energon with them facing the sparklings. "Drink up, and keep energized. We never know when we have to vacate our safe spot."

Leo was silent as he moved to sip the energon. Velocity drank a few gulps and then looked at me with metal brows arched. "So I take it that we aren't that safe then?"

I took a gulp of the nasty energon with a slight shudder. "You two are safe. I wont let anything happen to you, ether of you." Velocity nodded, her armor twitching slightly as she drank slowly at the large cup of energon. Leo didn't make any sound. "Leo, little brother, what's wrong?" Again he said nothing. "Leo, answer me please."

"I'm frustrated." He blurted out. Leo angrily shoved the straw away, moving to stomp along my thigh plating. Velocity watched with jaded uninterest, as if she had already heard it. She might have, for all I know. I don't know what they talk about inside my sparkling hold, especially in their sparkling lingo. "I know that you're having energy problems, and you cant seem to stay totally steady on your servos. I also know that Ironhide's spark is draining lots out of you, and you still have to watch us, keep us safe. The others are out fighting, fighting for our home world, for our people, for the human race. It makes me angry, Sissy, that I'm too small, too weak, too _useless _and I can't do a damn thing to help you."

"Leo," I said slowly, "Your not useless. Your helping me right now, you know." I left it at that, hoping he would take the bait.

He bit. "How so?" Leo snorted.

"Right now you and Velocity are keeping me company," I said. Leo looked none the pleased. "And," I continued, "helping me listen for anything sneaking up on us. Aren't you? Or am I listening all to my self?"

Leo huffed again. "I feel like I could do more."

Sighing, I took one of my fingers and ruffled his helm armor. Dryly, I said, "Listen squirt, once you grow a few more feet, like fifteen, then I'll let you kill your first Decepticon." I drawled.

Leo shot me a look and wiggled away from my hand. Running his hands over the plates on his helm to lay them flat, he gave me an agitated tone to his words. "I hate when you do that."

"And that's why I do it, brattling." I took another drink of my energon, draining it to half the cup as I reclined backwards against a concrete slab. "Now, go finish drinking your fill. I'll store it away after that."

Velocity sat down, leaning against the side of the cup of energon. Her blue armor reflected slightly in the blue glow. I moved the straw back into place for Leo, and he took a hold of it, drinking slowly as he sat down. Velocity let out a small wry chuckle suddenly. "You know, Strider, you contradict what you say."

"Oh?" I drawled, "how so?"

She took a drink from the energon before she pushed it away, seemingly full now. Velocity looked up at me, and crossed her ankles, showing feet so much like her fathers in shape. "I heard that you killed your first Decepticon before you were fifteen feet tall." She snorted. "I heard you first killed at thirteen foot tall."

It was my turn to snort. "Wrong again short stuff." My audio receptors twitched as I heard the sound of one of the Decepticon air vehicles zoom overhead, some on set destination already set. "The first Decepticon I killed was also the one who almost killed Sideswipe. Savage was his name, and he was quite a bitch to fight. Stripped me of my armor, and burned me pretty good. Even pulled off one of my door panels." I mused. "Ah the good ol' days back when I was just a measly tot of eight foot tall." Leo snorted, almost coughing on his energon. "And that's why you swallow before you snort, you dork."

Leo rumbled at me while moving his straw away. I took the energon cube, sealed it, and shoved it into my subspace. "I'll kill my first Decepticon when I'm eight feet tall too. You just wait and see, Sissy."

"Kiddo, don't rush it." I said. Shifting my shoulders, I drained the last half of the cube in one go. It was nasty tasting, making me almost gag, but it hit my tank like a rock and filled it up. "You don't wana grow up fast; live your childhood well. Before you know it, you'll be grown up, looking for femmes to love, and then waiting on a sparkling of your own."

"Sissy!" He scolded. "That's gross! Femmes are gross that way! I've seen Mama and Daddy! Its nasty!"

Velocity giggled. "I think it's cute when my mama gets ticked off at daddy and then beats him silly." She frowned. "But daddy isn't here now…"

"He'll be here kiddo, as soon as we get him another body built."

"I know." She sighed. "But I cant help but feel-"

"Shhh." I barked quietly, raising a hand to silence her further. I heard something putting jerkily down the road, an engine straining and failing slowly. Soon it rolled to a stop, just in front of where we hid. I could hear sounds within. Shifting. The sounds of small and larger footsteps. "Stay here." I said and scooted them off and into a corner behind some cement. I poked a small hole to the outside, big enough for them to flee through if need be. They glanced fearfully up at me, moving together to cling to each other.

I moved to the edge of the hidey-hole. Peeking out, I saw nothing but a rather beaten up short shuttle bus with several things moving within. Moving my head out further, I peeked along the side streets. I didn't see any Decepticons. I slid my optics back to the bus, catching sight of a human ducking below a seat. Moving back inside, I whispered to the sparklings. "It's a bus of humans. I'm going to help them; you stay here and help the humans into the safety corner when I get them in here. Act cute and cuddly, because I bet they're going to be terrified." No noise greeted me, and so I moved out fully.

As soon as I emerged, I heard wailing start up in the bus, and the frantic shushing of an adult. I moved carefully to an open window and kneeled down. I had avoided the rather large and obvious rip in the roof, less I appear more horrifying. "Hey," I said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you, I'm on your side."

There was no response. "Come on," I said. "Look at my eyes, they're not red. I don't have the same mark that they do."

A little girl popped up from beneath a seat, her mop of red curls bobbing up and down. Green eyes peered at me curiously as she looked from my face to my marking beneath my ear. "Miss Carmichael, the robot isn't lying! Its eyes are blue! A pretty blue too! Look at that red face on its ear! It looks sad."

"Anne!" a female voice hissed. "Get down, we don't know if that thing wants to kill us."

A little boy popped up next, Native American in heritage if his face was anything to look at. "Miss Carmichael, Anne's right!"

"Mark!" She hissed. This Miss Carmichael, a rather athletic looking brunet, popped up, a handgun held in her hand. It automatically went to my optics, the sound of the safety flicking off. "You try anything, machine, and your eye goes before we do."

"I'm not here to harm you or the children." I said. "Come, I have shelter, where you can meet my kinds children and be safe."

"How do I know your not going to hurt the children or myself?"

"I don't like humans in my joints." I said seriously.

Little Mark cracked up. "This robot has a sense of humor!" he stood up on his seat and looked at me. His brown eyes looked at my face and the cables and wires of my body with curiosity.

"Fine." Miss Carmichael said. "The door's jammed, I can't get it open."

"Then I'll lift you through the hole in the ceiling." I said. I moved, my little hands extending down into the hole as I stood, letting my fingers hover over the hole. "Go ahead and climb on. I don't know how many are in there, so I might need to make a couple trips. Miss Carmichael, if you would, I would like to take you first, along with the children of your choice."

"My name is Brenda. There are two other adults with me down here, and a whole mess of kids. I count thirty kids, give or take one or two." She said, moving into my little hand. My fingers closed around her, or at least one set did, and then I brought her to my palm. "Anne, Mark, David, Carrie, Silas, Brian, Casey, James, and Carmen, you will come first. Carmen, be careful ma'am, you don't want too damage that baby of yours."

"I'll be alright, Brenda." A woman from down below said. I felt a significantly heavier weight settle into my hand. "This baby has survived a demolished subway train. I think he can handle little old me being lifted by a giant robot." My hand closed around her, the swell of her pregnancy making her harder to grasp in one hand.

When my hands were loaded up, and Carmen, a blond lady that was heavily pregnant, was safely held extra carefully, I grasped them tightly so I dropped no one and tucked them to my chassis. I moved swiftly across the road, ducking down into the safety of my hidey-hole. I set them all down gently, taking extra care to set Carmen down softly. "Go to the back corner," I said. "Leo, Velocity, come help them back there. I have another load to make."

Leo was the first one to gingerly step out, waving his small hand at the humans. His blue optics flickered over them curiously, very little fear evident in the soft aqua of his gaze. "Come this way please." He spoke softly too. "My Sissy wants to keep you safe."

Velocity peeked out, and waved for them to approach as well, though she remained behind my brother as much as she could. She was still a bit larger then him, hence why she was still partially visible. "Come over here please, there's nothing to trip on so you should be fine. Just come towards our optics."

"Come now children," Carmen cooed. "Lets go to the nice little robots and let the big one get your friends, alright?" She herded them to the back, all of them ranging to the various ages from kindergarteners, to maybe eighth graders. Brenda, I watched, surveyed the area and then glanced up at me. She scrutinized me silently, watching as I shoed some of the littler ones, like Anne and Mark away from me.

"Hey Machine!" She called. I shifted my gaze to her as she tucked away the handgun in the back of her pants. "Do you have a name, or do I get to keep calling you robot?"

I snorted. "I'm Nightstrider." I moved back to the entrance, "I'm going to go get more of your kids, alright?"

"Okay." She nodded. She moved and stood at the entrance, watching from beneath an over hanging. "Go for it. I'll be watching you, Nightstrider, and if I see one aggressive act, you're getting a bullet in your ass."

"I wouldn't expect anything less, Brenda."

I carefully crossed the road to the bus. I could hear the sounds of missiles in the distance, and I could hear more destruction and mayhem happening. I could also hear some various ominous sounds closer by, and I'm eager to get these kids to safety so I can get into hiding again. As I neared the bus, I saw kids waiting patiently near the roof hole. I lowered my hands, my little hands extending down and snagging ten more random children. The other adult, a tall blond male, waved at me to go drop them off and get back fast. I moved quickly, tucking ten more children, six boys, four little girls, to my chest and moving to the hideout. I set them down carefully, scooting them in further to have Brenda escort them to the back with the other little kids.

As I was turning to go back to the bus, I heard the tell tale sounds of a missile launch. Down the street, a large Decepticon was lumbering slowly towards us, roughly ten blocks he still had to walk. Approaching us quickly, well the bus more or less, was a missile. The kids inside saw it, and they started screaming. Their screaming made the kids inside scream, and caused Brenda to come running. "Get back!" I howled. I barely had time to block the entrance of the safe spot with my body, and in doing so; I almost caused Brenda to get squished. I also didn't even try to save them, some ten odd kids, and an innocent adult man. I didn't even try. I couldn't. I couldn't react fast enough.

In war, you cant save everyone.

I couldn't save the kids. The explosion was big, burning my armor and making the paint on my body bubble and sizzle. Amongst the blaze, soft moist things pinged off of my armor; Brenda's gasp enough to let me know that it was limbs. A wet wave sprayed my armor, slipping down the cracks of my armor, sliding in-between my wires.

"No!" Brenda started this angry howling sound, beating against my forearm. "You didn't save them! Damn you, they were too young to die! Damn all you aliens to hell! Rot in it, you mother fucking scum! My sister was in there! Sammy! Sammy! Samantha!"

I scooped her up, scrambling inside as the Decepticon outside let out a bellowing chuckle. I moved to the back, opening my chest and popping open my sparkling hold. "Okay, I'm going to get you all somewhere safe. For now you're all going to get stuffed inside my hold with the little Cybertronians. It's going to be a tight fit, but we need to do it if we're going to get everyone to safety. Once you're in there, I need everyone to be quiet, no matter what you hear outside." There was fussing mainly from the little children going into a dark space, but I got everyone jammed in my hold in under thirty seconds, even the sparklings. Then I was up and barreling through the side of my shelter, scampering around buildings and dodging other Decepticon troops. The one that had killed those kids had thundered after me for a while, but eventually I outran him.

I never looked back at the carnage that had become those kids. I couldn't bear to. I would lose a little bit of myself if I did.

…

Eventually I came to a spot that was completely abandoned. I had seen Lennox's team drop from the sky, and knew things were starting to get underway. The spot I stopped in, I recognized it as the place where Optimus and Sentinel would battle it out, before they moved to the bridge. There was nothing, so I went down a side isle. I edged along, ducking away from fast flying drones who didn't seem to care about me, until I ducked into a fairly open alley way. I was about to go down it, except that I froze at the sight of a large, spiky, gray metal colored Cybertronian staring up at me with bright red optics from behind a cowl.

Fear shot through me, rippling past my mental defenses and crashing down heavily on my bond mates, and my family. I felt them pressing in on me, asking me what was wrong, if I was safe, and what the hell was happening. I dismissed them with a simple lying thought of being startled by a dead Decepticon. They bought it, going back to what they had been doing, thought I could feel them paying attention to my ever shifting emotions. Shock, lingering fear, anger, and curiosity.

Megatron rumbled a chuckle. "Well, well, well, what do we have here?" He said, his voice slower but still growly and gravely, as if his processors couldn't quite function right. "A lone femme bearing the mark of an Autobot. Now what might you be doing out here? I figured that my dear brother Prime would have you brigged for safe keeping." He seemed to ponder my face briefly, lifting a claw and beckoning me closer. "Come here, child, I wont hurt you. Femmes are to rare to find almost; to valuable now that the AllSpark has been murdered. I just wish to see your face better. My optics aren't as good as they used to be, thanks to my brother."

I exhaled softly, my blasters on my shoulders humming slowly to life, bringing themselves online. Then I inhaled and walked forwards slightly. I know, your probably thinking that I'm crazy. Who, in their right mind, would willingly walk to Megatron? Well, if you remember, I did have my own trip with insanity. Maybe he'll sense something kindred in me, and end up not molesting me. Who the hell am I kidding…

When I was close, Megatron stuck his clawed hand out and grasped my face. My own hands shot up, claws shooting out, and held onto his wrist on a natural reaction. I felt both sparks in my chassis start to pump faster, fear and apprehension oozing into me veins. Ironhide reacted, pushing thoughts, procedures, and escape routs into my mind. I moved my optics to lock with his, and he raked his optics over my face. His hand turned my head this way and that, his claws surprisingly gentle on me. He touched one of my antenna as it moved up and down.

"Ah," he rumbled. "I thought I recognized you, young one. You are Optimus Prime's youngling, one of the ones that my troops feared when they launched that last raid on Diego Garcia." He let out a chuckle and used his other hand to tug me closer, pretty much setting me on his knee. "They said that it was like a miniature me out there fighting, that you had so much rage, so much insanity in your fight, that you did not even feel when half of your lower leg was ripped off. They said that you took on a seeker in air combat, even though you only have those tiny rocket boosters, and all for a sparkling no less. Tell me sparkling, is this true? Did you truly lose your mind?"

For a moment I contemplated not speaking, but then I began to think of the consequences if I didn't. He might lose his patience and hurt me; there for hurting the humans and sparklings inside me. Then I nodded as well as I could. "Yes." I said. "But I fought it back. It's gone now, and I'm back to normal."

"So young," he crooned. "So naïve… The insanity never goes away. It just hides itself, waiting to strike. You're like me, my niece, my bloodline. You are much more like me then you know. A child after my own spark. I sense it in you. Yes… we are much alike." He stroked a hand over his cheek. "You aren't weak, you are worthy." He let out a rumble, starting to pet my head absentmindedly. "Yes, yes. If you weren't allied with those Autobot scum, I would have you by my side, as family should be. You would be my heir, niece, and we could rule the universe."

"You don't have to rule the universe." I said. I shifted uncomfortably, my toes twitching as Megatron's claws explored my face and armor. He fondly touched my Audio receptors, and for a moment, I was extremely glad that I did have those like my Papa, even though we aren't blood related. "You could find an abandoned planet and have your drones rebuild Cybertronian cities on it. You could make a temporary home until Cybertron can be healed."

"Hmm." He stroked my helm again. "Indeed, a very good idea. I see you got your intelligence from both sides of the gene pool, hmm?" If he says so. What ever floats his boat. "You know what, you are the first in a long time to show such little fear in my presence. Family shouldn't fear family."

"No." I agreed. "Fear shouldn't be reserved for family, Megatron."

"Hmm…" He seemed to purse his lip components, however small they are. "Uncle. I have decided that you shall call me Uncle. Now, my niece, what is your designation?" His optics fixated on my face.

I almost shivered. Its best to just please the insane though, its better for the sane. "I am designated NightStrider, Uncle."

"NightStrider," he rolled it around on his tongue. When he said it, it seemed to have an evil hiss to it. Almost like that's how my name would be pronounced if I were a Decepticon. "A noble and powerful name. A name that would be well feared, if you were to join me." I sighed lowly. I felt tired, my energy draining itself rapidly from the entire running and working to stay alive and out of the way. "You seem tired, youngling. Why is that?"

Think fast, a lie, a good lie! "I have unfortunately been unable to refuel with adequate Energon for some odd days now."

"I apologize, Niece, for that was most likely mine and Sentinels cause, but it had to be done."

"Uncle, you know that Sentinel is just using you, right?" I asked.

He nodded. "Just as I am using him. It is a battle of the wits, one I am afraid that I will surely win. He will be removed once his usefulness has gone away, and then there would be room for you to join and rule with me, my bloodline."

"Uncle," I said, "Unfortunately," my ass, "I can't join you. My Father would hunt me down and bring me back for Ratchet to scan me and see if I blew a gasket."

"Hmm." Megatron said. "How unfortunate." He set me down again. "Go along and play in the city now, I can see your Decepticon side peaking through. It looks as though, Niece of mine, that you have been playing with the fleshlings." He motioned to my blood coated armor. "Go now, have fun in the city. My Decepticons will give you no trouble, my niece. You will be left to do as you please." He waved me off. "Only because you are the first in a long time to not blatantly show fear and maliciousness, and because you are a kindred soul."

I simply nodded and hedged out of the alley. The tension in my cables was almost unbearable, and I feel dirty. Nasty. Like I've been immersed in human fecal wastes. Regardless, I bolted away, turning corners and bolting away from a set of Decepticons that ignored me.

The sky opened up and I could for once see Cybertron. It was beautiful, even If the planet was long dead. Then it had died, and for a while it just hung there. And then, only then, did it get sucked back up. All the ships that the Decepticons had been in were sucked up too. I ran quite some ways, believe it or not, but I stopped before another alleyway. I could here noises down it, and it sounded like a female voice. I rested along the edge, where I wouldn't be seen, and panted quietly. I needed a refuel, an honest to god good refuel. But now was not the time, nor the place.

"Come on Screamer, your no' dead yet, no your no'. You can' leave me, Screamer you insufferable ass-face."

I peaked my head around to see who it was. There, kneeling over the broken remains of StarScream, was a femme. She was black, rather short at maybe 15 foot tall. I could see the Decepticon insignia, and I could see the red eyes. Her door wings were held low, sad. She had claws on Screamers face, and there was another Decepticon with her.

"Hatchet, you ca' fix 'im, righ'?" she said.

A four legged Decepticon was down there working on Starscream. "Whiplash, femme, give me space! I can save him so long as you aren't breathing down my neck! Go! Shoo! Go kill the Autobot that's spying on us right now."

I took that moment to bolt away, planning on hiding out. There was a sudden lull of violence, and then a crippling pain rolled over my Fathers side of the bond. He had lost his arm it seems. I moved to a safer spot, and waited. Soon Whiplash bolted past, seemingly intent on chasing something that wasn't there.

:_Autibots!:_ My father comm. linked us all. :_It is over and done! Re group along the main street.:_


	86. Little Bottle Of Misery

(_**Hello my fan-readers~ goodness, that was an eventful chapter! Well, this one is short, sweet, and not really to any point. Regardless, it gets us where we need to be. Apologies for the shortage of length, but now, after this is all summed up, we get another time skip :D**_

_**The next big event will be the biggest by far. World changing. Kudos if you can guess what it is~**_)

I made it back to the main street an hour after I got the message. My body had tired itself out, and I was trying to remain as inconspicuous as I could around the buildings. My backside hurts, burns, with the remnants of the missile strike still hurting. The human blood stings my burns. I'm not too sure if it's good for them to be immersed in the stuff or not. The humans and sparklings in my chest had been getting restless, the little ones shifting and poking around. I didn't bother to stop and refill, for my passengers safety more so then mine, so my energon reserves were rather low. I had passed by Whiplash a couple times as well, though she paid me no heed. It seems she was still searching for the mech who had seen them saving Starscream. Too bad they didn't know that it wasn't a mech. Well, too bad for them anyways.

When I stepped into the street, I noticed the difference from when I first stepped here. It was torn up, and a total mess. Cars, bodies, and mech parts were strewn everywhere. Autobots were resting all over the place, on crushed cars, fallen buildings. My papa was sitting on the bridge, Elita and Chromia working with Jolt to try and temporarily patch up his arm. Two mechs, Hound, Arcee, Jazz, and BlueStreak by the looks of it, were going down into the river to fetch Wheelie and Brains. They would also probably remove any still living Decepticon on there as well. Bumblebee was with Sam and Carly, Mikaela also there, though she was sitting with Prowl. Prowl was missing his foot and a door wing, and Mikaela was working to stop the bleeding.

Ratchet, who was on the bridge at the time, flagged me down and started forwards. Sunny was sitting on the ground, his left leg missing. Sideswipe was next to him, his hands busy holding a staunching rag to Sunstreaker's missing limb. They both washed our bond with love, however. I stumbled forwards as I crossed towards the hurrying medic, my toes catching a hole in the ground and sending me staggering. Ratchet caught me by the armpits, and began cursing at me in Cybertronian.

"Nice to see you too Ratchet." I said dryly. I got my feet under me and shook him off. "None of that now, Ratch, I have important cargo that needs looking at." I moved to open my chest plates when Ratchet caught my hands in his. I looked at him tiredly.

"The sparklings are hurt?"

I shook my helm. "No. But I have a fuck load of humans in my sparkling hold with them. One of the humans is expecting a sparkling, so I wanted you to take them out and give them a look over. Can you let my hands go?" I wavered slightly on my feet.

He let go of my hands to hold onto my face. I watched his optics scan over my face, and then tighten. Ratchet drew his eyebrow plattings together in slight puzzlement. "You have not energized in some time, and you have been active. You also have extensive burns to the plates and cables in your back, along with organic life substance charred to your armor. Why? You should have been hiding."

My cables tightened, the memory of the explosion, the screams of human children crying, sobbing for me to help them flashing through my mind. The booming laugher of the Decepticon, his heavy steps, his cannon firing, all of the sound following me as I fled away with my precious cargo. I looked away, the memories of the flesh and blood pounding against my armor along with the heat of the explosion as it washed over me now pressing on my mind. "I ran into some trouble. I did what I had to in order to save the sparklings and the humans."

Ratchet merely nodded at me, seeming to accept my excuse for now. He guided me forwards, a hand pressed gently against my back, where the plates were charred. "Come, let's get you seated and get the humans over here to help remove the ones in your chassis. How many do you think are within you?" He sat me down against a building. Ratchet waved over at William. "Lennox, bring your team over here. Nightstrider has human survivors." I sighed softly as I leaned against the rough material of the building. Ratchet opened my subspace and pulled out a cube of the high-energy energon, and then sub spaced some form of tube. He popped one end into the energon, though it remained capped and didn't spill, and then he shifted some plates, and I felt him shove it through a slot in my protoform and into my stomach. I could feel it emptying quickly, the nasty taste not there in the first place. "This is only for emergency fillings. Don't do this on habit, you hear me?"

"Loud and clear." I unenthusiastically saluted. My helm rocked back against the cement building as I felt Lennox and several other humans scale my leg. I felt something small and annoying pressing into my armor, just left of my spinal area and below my door wing.

"Where are they then?" I heard him ask. He patted my leg softly, pretty much saying that it was good to see me.

"Here." I said. "Ratchet, you're going to want to step back. One of the adult femmes is flighty, and will most likely try and shoot you. She doesn't quite trust us." I shifted my chest plates back, my sparkling chamber popping open and allotting the humans cool air.

Anne popped her head out, her red hair ruffled slightly. She smiled a huge gap toothed smile, though her eyes were red and puffy from crying. "Miss Carmichael, the Soldiers are here to help us now!" She waved her arms and then was joined by Mark. Both little ones eagerly scrambled into my hand as I offered it, and then they pounced on Lennox when they were close enough. She caught sight of Ratchet, shied away at first by hiding her face in Lennox's shoulder first, until she saw Ratchet's optics. "Miss Carmichael, the nice robot brought us to more nice robots!"

"You didn't tell us that these were going to be children!" Will exclaimed. He passed Anne and Mark to Epps, who passed them down to another man, and so on and so forth.

"Indeed." I rumbled. "I must have missed that little bit of information." I unloaded the children slowly, two by two, so that the rest of the humans down below wouldn't be overloaded. It took a bit, because some of them had to be coaxed out of my hold. It was long enough for Ratchet to have changed the energon cube three times, but I was also starting to feel less sluggish. I could feel my wounds more. I unloaded Carmen carefully, supporting her with to hands. She was grimacing, her hand pressed to her belly.

Carmen clutched my pinky tightly and groaned for a second, before she let go looked at me. "Sorry about that. The baby has decided that he'd like to join the action too."

I actually just let her down on the ground. Epps came over to guide her away. "Take care of her Epps," I said. "She's in labor."

"Awe shit." I heard the black man curse. His dark eyes met mine and he nodded. "Its good to see you and all, but we'll talk later, okay?" I nodded at him and he walked on, supporting Carmen the best he could. I let the sparklings out, and they scrambled from my legs to the ground, and then through the rubble towards Optimus, Elita, and Chromia.

I then removed Brenda. She had been curled at the back of my hold, and when I removed her, she attached to my fingers. She looked up at me with the most broken face. She motioned for me to bring her to my face, so I told Lennox it would be a moment before I would set her down. I neared her to my face, and then she sat up. "I know that there wasn't anything you could have done to save my sister." She croaked. "I know this well. I want to be angry, I want to blame you. I want to curse you until you die, but I know I cant. There's no reason too. And Cindy, if I did, would haunt me to my grave for it." She sniffed. "I'll always remember her, but I guess there wont be a funeral with a body. Regardless, I thank you. You saved those of us you could, and if you hadn't been there, we all would have been dead." She sniffed again. "You can go ahead and let me down. Your eye color reminds me too much of my sisters toe nails. They were always that color."

As I let her down, my spark swelled in agony and misery. The feeling of letting the children down crashed down on me again. The twins, my mother, and my father all flooded the bond, taking some of my misery with them, leaving puzzlement. Only my brother knew, and he channeled my misery, broadcasting it around as only a sparkling could. The agony grew and bubbled, settling deep within my spark. I willed it all in, tucking it down, storing it deep within my bottle of woes, never to be seen again.

"There's, something wedged back here." Ratchet said. He rocked me forwards, shoeing the humans away. "You have something small wedged right here." He pulled it out fairly easily, and then he pulled it in front of me. "Do you know what this is? I cannot recognize it fully."

I looked. I shouldn't have, god I shouldn't have looked. Disgust welled up within me, my urge to purge rising fast. My bottle of woes felt about to burst, and then I felt tears welling up into my optics. There, dangling from Ratchet's clippers was a foot. Not just any foot, it was human, and slightly charred. The toes oh got the toes. They are Autobot optic blue.


	87. Reflective Bonds

(_**My apologies on the wait. I've been having troubles, and I had a bad reaction to blood donating. We had to put my horse down, I had to listen to the gunshots, and I've been mildly lethargic about the future. Bah. It all sucks hard. Rock hard. Anyways, enjoy the update, yeah? I know its short, bit its kind of an interlude :P. I probably wont make it to 100 chapters, but I'll give it a good shot. We still have quite a bit to do. After this chapter, we get to see some awesome time skipping skills. Enjoy chapter 87~**_)

I had been set aside until we could get everyone to a temporarily safe place. I, however, moved to sit next to the twins. I put my hand on Sunstreaker's leg, the one not missing. He turned dark blue optics to me, seeming to gaze into my soul as he probed the bond. "How are you doing?" I asked tiredly. I looked at Sideswipe. "What about you? Are you doing okay?"

"I'm okay." Sideswipe answered. His hands were still busy holding the rag to Sunstreaker's wounds. "Slagged a lot of 'cons today. Had some fun, too, until Sunny here got his leg blown off, dumb aft."

"Shut it Sides." Sunstreaker grunted. He gently took my hand and gave it a tight squeeze. "I'm doing alright. I can't strand right now, but at least I'm not offline."

"Yeah." I smiled wryly. "Primus help himself if you went to wreak havoc in the well of all sparks." I let out a puff of air. I looked over at Ratchet, finding him busy helping my father and trying to reattach his arm. I looked at Sunstreaker. "Where's your leg at?"

He sighed. "Disintegrated. A 'Con blew it off, and it… just kind of melted away. I was like, Damn, what the hell am I supposed to do now?"

"Well fuck." I agreed. There was one thing I could do to help. I sighed softly and removed the cleanest bit of under armor I had on, which was one of my breastplates. It was still a bit dirty, but that could be dealt with. "Okay, I'm going to seal up your leg then." I pulled out my clamps from within one of my subspace pockets. I made sure that they were the small ones. I looked to sideswipe. "How fast is your brother loosing energon when you're not staunching it?"

Sideswipe snorted. "Its like a fragging firehouse." He answered. He eyed me. "What… are you doing?"

I chuckled slightly. "Dealing with your brothers leg before it can get worse." I pulled my hand from Sunstreaker's and then pulled out a cube of regular energon. I put it in his hand. "Drink this so you don't go into stasis lock."

Sunstreaker took a drink from it as he watched me. "You know, you don't have to use your armor to help me."

I shrugged. "I don't have any of the metals that Ratchet does for this stuff, so, the lower layer of my armor works just fine." I shoes Sideswipe away from Sunstreaker's leg. "This is going to hurt a lot." I warned. He tilted his glass at me and took another swig. Rolling my optics, carefully I peeled back the cloth that had stuck itself to his leg, releasing a rush of escaping fluids. It was nasty, but not something I hadn't seen before. Sunstreaker hissed slightly, and when I looked at him, he arched an eyebrow plate at me. Taking my clamps, I focused on the torn lines and set to clamping them off. Energon coated my fingers, and I willed them not to shake as I felt myself getting tired again.

"Damn, Princess, it is incredibly sexy when you're working on my brother." Sideswipe purred.

"Keep your hands to yourself when I'm working," I warned, "or you can find your fingers clamped off."

"What ever you say."

By the time I finished, with the welding of my armor onto his leg to protect the bare wires and underbody, I was tired. Uber tired. I sighed softly and pulled back as I set the last weld of my armor onto Sunstreaker into place. I moved to sit next to Sunstreaker, who then moved slightly so I could lean on him. "Your finished now." I said. "Until Ratchet gets hold of you."

Sunstreaker chuckled as Sideswipe moved to the other side of me and sat down. "I bet." He said. "Now, babe, I know that something is bothering you."

"Care to share?" Sideswipe asked.

I shrugged. "Sure. Want some energon though first, Sideswipe?"

He nodded. "Yeah." I subspaced a cube and gave it to Sideswipe. "Now, spill."

I swallowed and nodded. "All right. So, you know that I couldn't save all the human sparklings on that bus." They nodded, and I rested my helm on Sunstreaker's shoulders. "Well… I… also met my uncle."

"Megatron?" Sideswipe spoke. "How are you even online? Did you have to run far?"

I shook my helm. "No. He could have caught me if I had run, or shot me in the back with that big cannon of his. He… simply wanted to talk, I suppose. So… call it stupid if you want, or whatever, but I approached him. He treated me like a pet, and lifted me like I weighed about as much as a cube of energon. I ended up sitting on his knee."

"You sat on his knee?"

"…Yeah?"

"That's creepy." Sunstreaker admitted. "What happened next, seeing as your still here to tell the tale?"

"Well," I drawled slowly, "He spoke to me on how that we were similar, beyond just blood relations," at Sunstreaker's arched eyebrow plate, I explained. "He didn't seem to know I'm adopted. I guess it's the audio receptors then. Anyways, he spoke about how his Decepticons had reported sights of me losing my mind those several years back. He said that his minions had told him that I was just like a miniature Megatron when I was fighting. He also…" I paused, mulling over my words. "Said that we were similar, that the insanity never really goes away, and that it just waits to take you again during your weakest moments. He said for me to address him as Uncle, too, and then asked for my name. You know, I never knew that my name could sound so… evil… coming from the mouth of anyone." I played it softly over my speakers, gaining the attention of my sparkmates.

"I know what you mean. Its incredibly… growly sounding." Sunstreaker said. "Continue please.

"He asked if I would join him," I continued, "and rule the Decepticons with him as his heir. I said no, of course. He seemed disappointed, but he let me go after that."

Sunstreaker clicked at me. "That doesn't sound too bad." He said.

"That's not what's bothering me." I said.

"Then what is?"

"Megatron said that we're kindred spirits, and he said that he could see the Decepticon in me because I have human blood splattered along my back. He didn't know what from, though… That's why he let me go. He also sent out the order for his Decepticons to leave me alone." I blinked. "I know they followed this order, because I accidentally ran across some, but they paid me no attention once they saw me. Shortly after that, papa sent out the message."

"It bothers me," I said. "That Megatron thought that we were kindred spirits. What if… primus, I don't want to think about it, but what if he's right? What if I'm like Megatron? What if I go insane like him, but for good?"

"He's not." Sideswipe shook his head. "Never. You're not a Decepticon. You're our spark mate, and we can sense these things. We haven't sensed any sort of insanity, not even the barest of hints."

Sunstreaker sighed against me. "Babe. Your insanity is gone, forever. You just have to believe in it, believe in us, in our ability to help keep you sane, even in your darkest times. Can you promise us this?"

I nodded. "I trust you both with my entire being, so of course I can promise you that."

"Good."

Ratchet approached us, eyeing my handy work. "Nice field job," he said. "You've gotten pretty good at doing that from Skids and Mudflap."

I nodded tiredly. "Yeah."

Ratchet regarded me for a moment. "I'm going to put you into a stasis lock for now, okay?"

Sideswipe jolted himself between Ratchet and me. "Why?" he demanded. Sunstreaker let out a soft growl.

"Because," Ratchet drawled, propping his hands on his hip components. "Its better for her systems to be in a stasis right now. My readings say that she's too stressed. She needs to be put in stasis for her own safety, and for Ironhide's as well. That was also the deal, if you remember correctly."

I nodded, and gently pulled Sideswipe back. "Its okay Sideswipe. I had agreed with Ratchet, that once we got to a safe place, which right here is as safe as its going to get, that I would go into a stasis lock for Ironhide's good, and my own."

Sunstreaker gave a disgruntled noise. "Alright. If it's for her own good…"

"And it is." I said.

"Then go for it." Sideswipe finished. "We'll guard her."

Ratchet snorted. "Sunstreaker couldn't guard a hot dog stand right now."

"Yes he could, so long as it doesn't roll away." I said.

"Shush, brattling." Ratchet scolded. "Now lean forwards." I sighed and leaned forwards, giving him access to a panel on the back of my helm. He started to tinker with it. "Now, I'm going to keep you in stasis until Ironhide's body is fully built."

"How long is that going to take?" I asked.

"It depends." Ratchet answered. "It could take anywhere from three months provided I get everything I need from the government, or it could take up to a year or more if I'm given problems by the humans."

I sighed. I could miss a year of my life. That would royally suck. "Alright."

"Offline your optics." Ratchet ordered. "I'm going to initiate shut down now." I shuttered my optics, and leaned on Sunstreaker.

"Can you make it so that I'm not fully conscious for however long I'm in stasis?"

"You'll go through a kind of dream sequence, so don't worry. Only for the last week or so should you be stuck with consciousness."

"Okay."

And my world went dark, sending me into dreams of such strange things that I could hardly comprehend them.


	88. No Going Back

(_**Now I know what you're probably thinking right now. Oh my god! She's actually updating before a week has gone by! Anyways, enjoy, it may be short, but eh, most of my chapters are short :P that's just how I write. Just to let you know, my AN's are written before the chapters, and I'm too lazy to go back and edit them usually, so sometimes they aren't shot when they say they might be short. Blah. Authoresses laziness. Cant blame me much, can you? After all, 88 chapters is a hell of a lot to type.**_

_**And in the dream, I'm sure it touches a fact that I'm sure at least one of you has been curious about.**_

_**Love to my brain twin, and to my RP and random chat buddy SeekerLuna~!**_

_**Enjoy chapter 88~**_)

Ratchet said that I would have been conscious for the last week or so. But, that wasn't true. I wasn't even fully aware until the day before I was supposed to be brought out, or so say the twins and my parents. So, for however long I was in the stasis, I dreamed. I didn't have multiple dreams though; I had one singular ongoing dream. It was weird, too. I can probably account for the whole thing in one go. Maybe. Probably not, now that I think about it. But I'll give it my best shot I suppose. I don't really have anything else to do, seeing as I'm not due to come out of stasis for another ten or fifteen minutes or so. It felt like something else was experiencing my dreams too, in a way.

Well, it all started out normal, I guess, but… it was back with me as a human. I went through my human life again. I had to go through losing my mother again, watching her health wither away with the cancer as I grew bigger and stronger. I felt her love for me as if it was fresh in my mind, and I felt and went through the grief that I had so long ago. I relished the moments in my dreams with my mother though. I truly and honestly savored it. It painted her face freshly in my mind, fresh into my memory files.

I still died as a human in my dreams, but it let me watch all my lighter hearted memories, like my first Rodeo with my uncle and aunt during my high school days. It had been one of the few days that I laughed anymore after my mom's death, until I had turned myself around. I had gotten rigged into riding in the rodeo. I held on, too, all eight second and then some, because I had too much of a death grip with one hand to let go. Ah, that had been much fun. The laughter had been genuine too, truly hearty laughter.

I went through basic training again; all the rigorous hours spent, all the exhaustion and all the frustration. I went through both of my tours and my breaks, and the time I spent with my cousins. I remember Kendal, quite well, and I went through all the laughs and all the giggles again with her. Sean too. But… then I died again; in the exact same way I remember dieing. The same burning feeling, the same soft and wet squelching sound as the bullets ripped through my cloths and into my body; it was all the same, down to the way the grenade went off, blowing us all away, and injuring Sean. Anyways, my human body died, blah, blah, blah, I visited Primus and all that fun stuff.

It was after my short chat with Primus that things changed, dramatically. I didn't land anywhere near Tranquility, Nevada. Instead, I landed somewhere off in Louisiana, in one of the bayous. The Autobots also didn't find me. Nope, Barricade found me and took me in. I suppose I was supposed to be a replacement for Frenzy, but… Barricade wasn't kind in the slightest. He gave me energon, sure, but he also didn't really like the fact that for a while I was pretty much useless. He kind of abused my sparkling body in a way, to get me to do things on my own, which didn't work. So, he contacted Starscream, and I was passed off to him. I spent my first couple years or so up on one of the planets, or where ever he and the Fallen were at. The Fallen had taken an interest in me, and had been dead set on raising me in the Decepticon ways. In this world, I took to their ways surprisingly well, being raised under the Fallen's watchful eye. I had a cruel streak, so it seemed, and from a young sparkling sized age, the Fallen would have me help interrogate bots.

I made friends, if you can call Decepticons friends, with another Femme called Whiplash. We weren't present for the battle of Egypt, as we were stuck caring for the hatchlings, which most of them died anyways. Starscream came up with some crack assed thought; to implant the hatchlings inside of us, and have them grow there, in our sparkling gestational chambers. It didn't go over all that much, as in this dream world I'm a hell of a lot different then in the real world. Whiplash did most of the beating to keep 'Screamer off of me as I worked, but we put Starscream off the idea by simply removing the problem.

Yes, if you understood my meaning, my Decepticon self murdered all the hatchlings. I told you, I was a lot different here then in reality… unless reality is a dream. So strange. I grew faster, reaching full maturity around the time the fallen died. I ended up with kind of creepy red optics, my armor was spiny, and my claws, well, they were absurdly long, and always were out on both my legs and hands. I didn't have door wings in this realm, having had them ripped off as a sparkling. I had those freaky spiky teeth, and my armor was thicker. In a way, I was burlier, not really recognizable unless you saw the audio receptors, antennas, and the face shape. Anyways, I murdered the hatchlings, Starscream thought me to be a monster, more so then Megatron, who, when he had come back, found me kindred enough to name me as his heir. Anyways, then we all kind of went down to earth.

I didn't find any form of love in this world, and, for a fact, that my dream Decepticon self actually removed all suitors. By removed, well… its kind of self-explanatory. Rod ripping ensued, along with some spark crushing in the literal sense. My Decepticon self, though, had an odd relationship with Skywarp. It was, I suppose, like frienemies. We fought, we used each other, but we also had each other's backs in a way. Well, until a better deal came up anyways.

Lets say, simply enough, that I died in the Chicago fight, after murdering thousands of humans and innocent people. I killed them happily. And then, much to my not so much surprise, I was killed by Sunstreaker, who was then eradicated by Megatron, who was my Papa in this fucked up alternate dream world. So, I died for the final time, and then I met up with my mother in the spirit world for a bit. She was disappointed in me, about which that I had taken so well to the Decepticon teachings, but she still loved me. And then we parted, and I went to the robotic version of hell pretty much. Anyways, that's where my dream turned to something not so strange, like, dancing frogs and all that stuff. That's when the feeling of being watched went away. So weird.

Anyways, I felt my mind start to slip back into my body fully, but slowly. I couldn't really feel my bonds much; they were kind of numbed out. I wasn't so much in a mental limbo now. When I was fully drawn back into my body, and I could feel things fully, I could feel a hand holding mine, and another on my thigh. There was a larger one that encompassed my foot, but it was slowly drawing back. I realized that was because my toe claws were relaxing, and drawing in on themselves. The air, I realized upon inhaling some of it, was cool, very cool. Cold like the air of my home town cold. It made me wonder just how long had passed. It had been… September I think. Yeah. It had been September. How long have I been out?

I forced my optic shutters open slowly, starting out with minuscule cracks so I didn't blind myself. When I could see with a small crack in my eyes, I then just simply opened them. The ceiling was the first thing I saw, and the happy sounds of my fellow surrounding Autobots were the first thing I heard. The hands that had been touching me moved away, though, when a familiar voice barked out.

"Shoo, shoo, out of my way, I need to give her a check over before any of you visit her when she's awake. Go on, you, behind the curtains. Yes, you too, shoo." Ratchet barked. Footsteps filed away behind something, but I could hear them fidgeting. Ratchet then filled my vision as he looked down at me. "Nightstrider, your awake, good." I blinked slowly, dumbly in a way. "Are you aware?"

I tried to speak, but only garbled static came out.

"I figured as much." He sighed. "Your vocal processor needs to be oiled, as it hasn't been in use for some time." I blinked up at him again as I felt Ratchet tampering with something in my throat. Something colder then the surrounding air oozed between some gears. "Try again now. Easier this time, just answer my questions with a simple yes or no, or good or bad. Do you know who you are and where you are?"

He was speaking to me slowly, like how someone speaks to a two year old. Feeling slightly bratty, I decided to lie a bit. "No. Who… am… I?" My voice was slightly raspy, unused. Static clung to it slightly, giving me a strangely robotic tone of voice. He kind of gave me such a strange look that I broke into static giggles.

"That's not funny." He scolded. Ratchet sighed. "That means your aware then, and you know where you are, and who you are."

"Duh."

"Do try and stick with simple words, like the ones I mentioned earlier, brat." Ratchet sat me up with the bed thing. I found the majority of my body under the sheets, though my toe claws poked through them down on the end. "How do you feel?" he asked me.

"Numb." I answered.

"That wasn't a good or bad for an answer, Nightstrider." He scolded. Ratchet checked something in my arm, and I realized that there were wires running into my body that were feeding energon to it. He set his hand on my thigh. "Can you feel this?"

"Yes."

"Good, good. And your bonds?" He pulled my arm from beneath the sheets and checked the lines in my arm. I realized I wasn't wearing my armor, and that the bare silver of my protoform was visible. Oh well. Only the spark showing was considered truly naked. I studied my arm, noticing it looked thin, thinner then it had ever looked, like I was on the verge of malnutrition or something. How odd.

"Numb." I answered.

"Hmm." He drawled. "That might be from the painkiller." I blinked dumbly at him. "We gave you a pain killer so that you wouldn't feel when we removed Ironhide's spark. It probably hasn't worked itself out of your system yet."

"How did…" Static noised erupted briefly. "It go?" I asked.

"It went perfectly." He said. "Your spark is fine for the most part, if a little stressed, though I have you on energon feed lines so that we can up your energon intake so your body will soon realize that it only has one spark to support, and for Ironhide, well, his spark is happily back in his new body. He's been running around the base for a few days now, seeing to this and that." Ratchet chuckled. "Him, along with quite a few others, are waiting on the other side of the screen to see how you're doing. Feeling up to keeping company?"

I blinked softly. "Sure." I wanted to see everyone.

"Okay." He patted me on the arm. "I'm going to send them in groups, so that you're not overwhelmed. Is that okay?"

I tried to nod, but I kind of failed. So I simply talked instead. "Yes." I paused a moment. "Why… can't I… move well?"

Ratchet paused and seemed to purse his lip components. "Well, brattling, you've… been in stasis for some time, for a transformer that is. I don't like having bots in stasis for over three months, as it can cause inauspicious effects. You… have been in stasis for some time. Mobility will come back day-by-day though. I suspect by the end of the week, you'll be up and walking again. Maybe sooner, with your stubborn streak."

I gave a wry smile. "Hope so…" I tried flexing my arm, and got it to twitch. I grunted with a kind of static filled sound, not getting any further then an arm twitch and a finger twitch. My finger claws, as far as I could tell, weren't out. They hadn't been out on the hand Ratchet had uncovered. "I can't get anything to move much."

"I see the oil's working on your vocal processors."

"Indeed." I said. "So we can presume."

Ratchet patted my helm gently. "Don't worry now, don't worry. I'll send in the first group." He stood and raised me up a bit more before plugging in a few more energon feed lines. He also, it looked like, had me on a spark monitor. Spark monitors are heart monitors for Cybertronians, and look much the same, just super sized. Anyways, Ratchet moved to the little break between the wall thing and another wall. He leaned his head out. "Ironhide, Chromia, Velocity, can you come in here please?" there was a shifting as the bots shuffled to let someone through, or so it sounded.

Ratchet paced back into the room and sat in a chair in a far off corner in front of a desk. I realized that I must have been in his office. How strange… Anyways, after Ratchet entered a familiar black giant came clomping in, with a dark blue sparkling on his shoulder. He looked the same, though he was completely lacking the scars. His faceplates were the same, how he walked, his armor, though shinier then I had ever seen it, was still basically the same as it had always been for me. Chromia filed in next to him, walking along on long legs, though she only came up to somewhere around his hip joint. Ironhide gave me a half grin. "Good to see you awake, brattling."

"Nightstrider!" crowed Velocity. She was… larger then I remembered. Probably six or seven foot tall now, instead of the four and a half or five foot that I remembered.

"Hey kiddo." I croaked. I smiled at her as the family of three came closer. "You've grown."

She nodded. "Yeah! I'm six foot five inches now, or at least, that's what Daddy tells me. But its been a while since both of you saw me, so of course, I'm gonna look a bunch bigger. You should see Leo! He's bigger then me now!" she sounded so disgruntled about it.

I gave a soft static filled chuckle. "That's good kiddo, that's good. We cant have him short like Jazz, now can we?"

"I suppose not." She frowned. She looked at her father. "Can you se me on that chair there?" He rumbled softly but nodded, setting her there. He moved the cover to find my hand and then she giggled. "You don't have your armor on!"

Chromia chuckled and leaned on Ironhide. "Of course. Her armor had been damaged, remember? You helped me fix it up all nice for her?"

Velocity nodded. "Yeah! I remember. Whoa, your hands look all weird without armor on." She set to playing with my fingers.

I looked to Ironhide. "You look well." I said. "Much better then the last time I saw you."

"Indeed." He rumbled. Ironhide moved and pulled one of the chairs up to my other side. He plopped down with a sigh as he gazed at me. He was silent for a bit, as if contemplating what to say.

Chromia, though, seemed to already know what she was going to say. "Thank you." She said. She patted my leg gently, giving me such a thankful look that it made me embarrassed. "I don't know how much I can thank you, only I know that it probably wont ever be enough."

"No thanks needed." I said wryly. "Just doing something that anybody would do."

Chromia shook her head. "Only you, Ratchet, and Jolt could have done it successfully without assistance." I pointed out that Ratchet had indeed instructed me. "I know, but you three are the only ones who know the cables and arteries in the spark. The others don't really. Even I don't. So, thank you, again and again for saving my spark mate."

I sighed softly but said nothing.

Velocity peeped up. "You saved my daddy." She said. "So I have to say thank you. I don't know what I would have done without him. Daddy's important to me, very much so. I can't have my mama without my Daddy. It wouldn't be right. So, thank you, Nightstrider."

"Ah," I said. "Kid, you make me feel shy when you say it like that. Like I am some sort of hero. I'm not."

Velocity grinned. "As far as I'm concerned, you, Daddy, Optimus, and all the brave bots that fight for us _are_ heroes." She patted my hand softly, frowning when I didn't even twitch my fingers. It wasn't my fault; I was trying to twitch my fingers, but it just wasn't happening. Not right now anyways. "You can't move?"

"Nope." I said. "Ratchet said I should be able too…" static. "Later." Blast it.

"Oh." She looked down. Then she hugged my hand, the only thing she could really reach. "Get better soon then, so me and Leo can tell you about all the stuff that's happened while you were sleeping." She hopped down from the chair and moved to go to her mother's side. "I think Daddy wants a moment so he can break his tough guy act without embarrassing himself."

Ironhide chuckled and ruffled Velocity's helmet armor. "That's just a code for you want to go get some energon, isn't it, squirt?"

Chromia sighed and patted Velocity. "Alright, young one lets go get you some energon." She waved, so did Velocity, and then they walked out.

Ironhide was silent for a moment, so the only thing we could hear for about a minute or so was Ratchet's slow methodic typing on his computer like thing. Then, Ironhide leaned his arm over carefully and clasp my hand, so much smaller then his, in his hand. He gave a gentle squeeze. "I don't really know what to say." He admitted. "I'm the weapons specialist. Socialization, beyond weapons talk and war stories, isn't really my thing. I don't like being a burden on anyone, and… to find out that just my spark caused such a toll on you has bothered me a lot…" Ironhide let out a tsk and let my hand go. "All I can really say is… thank you, from the bottom of my spark, and with the whole of my new being."

"There isn't a need for words." I said. "I felt your gratitude when I guarded…" static. "Your spark." I smiled wryly. "Upgrade my shoulder blasters and we'll call it good."

He did one of those full body chuckles and pressed a hand to his helm. "Here I am worried that you'd be angry that I was such a drain on you when I was without my physical form, and you simply call it even with a weapons upgrade! Femmes! I'll never understand them, and I'm the father of one, and mated to one!"

"What can I say?" I tried to shrug and failed. "We females tend to confuse everyone. You should look at the human race. We aren't so different when it comes to confusion."

"Indeed." He pursed his lip components. Ironhide sighed. "A weapons upgrade it is. I might even sharpen and make your claws longer if you don't mind."

"Sure." I agreed.

Ironhide sighed and stood, patting me gently on the helm. My antenna's, I couldn't even get to respond to him, or to my commands ether. "We don't talk about what was spoken here. I can't have my reputation fragged up."

"Of course." I drawled. he waved and then walked out quietly. I sighed softly. "Ratchet?"

"What?"

"I think you can send in the next group now…" Static. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. I'll decide when I get there." He snorted. He rolled back from his desk and stretched.

I squinted at him. "I hope your not saying that its me choosing who gets to come next. That would make me sound mean."

"Nope." He said. "They know I'm choosing." He stood up and moved to the doorway. He poked his helm out. "Will Optimus, Elita-1, and Leo please come in at this time?" Ratchet then turned on his high-heeled foot and went back to his seat. His fingers resumed typing on his computer.

I sighed softly as Leo came bounding in first, followed by my father and Elita. I cast them a smile.

"Sissy!" Leo cried. He hurried to my bedside, hopping up on the chair that Velocity had previously occupied. He had grown, it seemed, just like Velocity had said, standing around eight foot now. Leo was definitely too large to fit in my sparkling hold unless he scrunched up, and most likely too big to lounge comfortably on my shoulders. His armor was thicker now; it looked more masculine, like a boy just starting to go through the first stages of puberty. Like when my little cousin had gotten his armpit fuzz. He had been so proud, but he was an early bloomer. Or… had been, rather. Leo still had his father's audio receptors, but he was still gangly about the legs and arms, more tall then thick. That would come with age and weapons though. "Your awake now!" Leo leaned over and slipped his hand in mine, or what he could of it at least. I tried to give it a soft squeeze, but only managed a half hearted hand flex. It was better then last time, and I think he got the point anyways.

"Yeah. I'm awake now squirt." I said. Leo let out a happy chirp and rubbed his head on my hand.

Optimus came to my side, gently taking my other hand in his. "Its good to see your awake, sweetspark." He rumbled. His optics shown brightly at me, worry have left a permanent etch in his face. "You've been in stasis for some time." His thumb ran over the back of my hand.

"How long was I out anyways?" I asked. "Four months? Five?"

They were silent for a moment. Then Elita spoke. "You were in stasis for thirteen and a half earth months due to some complications." She patted my leg. "While that's not really a long time by human standards, for us, its never a good thing. Our gears and cables aren't meant to remain unmoving for that long. And… some of our bots aren't here anymore."

I blinked in understanding. "I missed a lot so it seems. So, who offlined during my… stasis?" I twitched my fingers as much as I could.

"We lost Que, which set back the building of Ironhide's body for some time along with quarrels with human government officials. His body was beyond repair, and thus, the Matrix of Leadership could not revive him." My Papa said. He pursed his lip components and looked at Ratchet. "We also lost Jolt, to a Decepticon attack about three months ago." He sighed. "His body wasn't reparable, as… well, one of the Decepticons had a cosmic rust gun. His spark extinguished before we could save him."

Ratchet let out a huff. "Now I'm down an assistant, and your not technically a medical bot." He sighed. "I can't pawn off the paperwork and simple jobs anymore."

"Sorry about Jolt, Ratchet. He was a good bot…" static. "And he was young, as far as I knew anyways. But he's in the matrix now, and in good hands." I said. I would know he was in good hands, provided he didn't mind Primus's sense of humor. "I'll help you the best I can when I'm not all stuck on the medical bed myself, but I'm not doing paperwork."

He let out a long exhale but didn't reply.

Optimus blinked at me. "Why is it that I cannot feel you over the familial bonds?"

I blinked back. "Ratchet says it's because of the painkiller in my system. It's made me numb for the most part." I twitched my hand slightly, trying to grasp one of their hands. It didn't work.

"I see." Papa said. "Well, regardless, I'm glad you're awake, and I know that I'm not the only one. Your mates have been living nightmares." He sighed, squeezing my hand.

Leo let out a soft snort. "Nightmare is an understatement. They've been pestering Ratchet almost since you went into stasis."

Elita sighed softly. "Well, I suppose we should let your mates in to see you."

"Not before I get my hugs." I said. "I might not be able to hug back, but I still like my hugs."

Papa chuckled. "Of course, of course. I call the first hug." He let out a half grin.

Elita-1 smacked him on the arm. "Haven't you ever heard of the phrase femmes first?"

"Haven't you heard of age before beauty?" he quirked.

Leo snickered as they bickered good-naturedly over who would hug me first, and then he clambered up onto my bed. Giving me a gentle shushing look, he spied on his parents briefly, and then stood up next to where my hip would be, as I didn't stretch from edge to edge on the bed. He slipped his arms behind my neck and buried his face in my neck cables. "I win." He whispered. I chuckled softly.

"Hey." I heard Elita chirp. "It looks like we were beaten before we left the starting line."

"Indeed that is what it seems to be." Optimus chuckled. He sighed half-heartedly. "I suppose I can let you hug her first."

Elita grinned as Leo moved back and hopped off the bed. She stood up on the same chair as Leo had, seeing as she was only a foot taller then him, and then she leaned over and hugged me around the neck. I leaned my head on her shoulder and she pressed a kiss to the top of my helm. "I love you, my little femmling."

"'Love you too Mother." Elita nodded and let me go, slipping back off the bed and ruffling Leo's helm armor. He griped and smoothed out his armor. "Primping for Velocity are you?"

"No!" he hissed. "Girls are gross like that! Nasty sissy!"

I snorted. "Just wait until you're my age. You'll have femmes crawling all over you, and you won't be able to get away." He scowled at me. "Oh I'm kidding squirt. You'll be fine. Go find Velocity and get her to help you prank someone."

He sighed and moved to grab my hand. I mustered enough motor control to squeeze his fingers just for a millisecond. "Yeah Sissy. I'll go do that." Leo patted my hand and then walked out.

Optimus leaned forwards and scooped up my upper half. I just kind of lolled there, limp like some giant metal noodle, but I did have enough control of my head to tuck it in his shoulder. He cradled me like only he can do, though he was careful of my energon feed lines. He rumbled softly at me and set his helm on top of mine gently. "Without your armor," he said, "You look so fragile, like a delicate flower. I'm terrified that if I were to hold you with the intensity I want to, my little one, that you would shatter like a china doll."

I blinked at him. "Papa, I'm not that delicate. You can hug me however you want, just don't be overly exuberant about it."

He chuckled. "Yes, yes, I know." He sighed and then looked at me, his optics twinkling with mirth and affection. "Sweetspark, your mates are spamming me with messages. They want their turn to visit you."

I nuzzled his shoulder with the only movable part that I had. "Alright. I guess you better go before they cause a riot."

"Preferably they don't damage any of my property." Ratchet huffed.

Papa set me down with a soft sigh. "Alright, sweet spark. I'll see you later then." He pulled back after pressing a soft kiss to my helm and then he left with Elita.

Ratchet didn't even have to summon them, because as soon as Papa and Elita left, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe bolted inside the room. They were at my side like flies to a pile of cow manure. Sideswipe took my right; Sunstreaker took my left, each one clinging to one of my hands. They looked no different, save Sunstreaker had his leg back. I was kissed first by Sideswipe, and then Sunstreaker kissed me too.

"Its good to see you." I smiled. "Thirteen months is far too long." I flexed my hands, straining until they clung to each of the other hands holding mine.

"Far, far, _far_ to long." Sunstreaker said.

Sideswipe pressed his helm to my arm. "I can't feel you." He whispered. "I haven't been able to feel you since you went into the beginning of your stasis." He looked up at me, blue optics torn and emotion filled. "Why can't I reach you?"

"It's just the painkillers right now." I said softly. I trailed myself subconsciously to the bonds and began to dig through the haze of the drugs. When my subconscious popped through and located the two bonds I was looking for, I drilled myself through the drug cork that had put itself in place. "I'm trying to reach you." I said.

Sunstreaker stroked my hand, and I flexed it as well as I could to let him know I could feel him. "We'll reach back, okay?" there was a slight desperation in his voice, a need to feel our bond and be reassured that I wasn't gone anywhere.

"Yeah." Sideswipe agreed. "We'll reach back." The same hint of desperation was in his voice too, but more prominent.

The bond took a bit, and it drained me mentally to try and fight the drugs, but eventually we drilled through and managed to get to each other. We filed loved and other emotions at each other, hope, anxiety, worry, and other stuff bombarding each other. I nuzzled them over the bond. "There." I said softly, a hint of static in the word. "I'm in."

"Indeed you are." Sunstreaker cooed softly. He looked at Ratchet. "She's tired." He said. "We're staying here for the night."

"Oh no your not." Ratchet objected. "I think you can simply go stay in your own room! The bond is open now, so you don't need to be here keeping her up all night."

"Ratchet?" I called. "I just spent thirteen months in a coma, I think I'm entitled to be with my mates." Sideswipe chuckled at me, setting his helm on my shoulder.

"I missed your snarky humor." He murmured softly too me.

Ratchet huffed at me. "I'd rather not, but I suppose one night wont harm anything."

"Good." I said. I shuttered my optics and lolled my helm to rest on Sunstreaker's arm. "Digging for the bond has made me tired."

"Then sleep."

"But I've slept enough."

"Sleep anyways; were here with you now."

Indeed. I sighed, leaving my eyes cracked as both Sideswipe and Sunstreaker slipped onto the bed with me, balancing me half on their bodies and half on the bed. They felt warm to my protoform, heavenly so. Under the sheet it was just that much better. "Warm." I purred.

"Babe," Sunstreaker ran a hand over my thigh gently. "Your thin without your armor on. Thinner then I remember…"

Ratchet made a noise as I closed my eyes to simply listen. "She's thin because her spark is used to pulling high amounts of energon to support two, and it doesn't now that there's only one, her body is used to pulling that energy. But, now it's sucking more then it should, so it's taking more and more of her energon fluids. That's why she's on the IV's. Her spark, though, had slowed on its pulling, so she should be looking better soon. Less malnourished."

That's a first… I've never been malnourished. I've always been the hefty kid in my own way. Hmm.

"Sleep." Sideswipe purred to me, stroking my helm.

"Okay." I said softly. I initiated my recharge routines, and slipped into a dream free recharge.


	89. First Step Is The Hardest

(_**Alright, well, I hope you all like this chapter, even though its short compared to the last chapter. It just wouldn't write itself like usual, so, I was stuck kind of improvising. Anyways, enjoy the chappie. Wow, we've come along way, haven't we? 89 chapters. 11 more and I'll have made it too 100. Hopefully, the biggest event will be good for you all, though it'll probably be written sparsely between several chapters since lumping it all into one is a pain in the aft, I've noticed.**_

_**GO LOOK AT MY PROFILE! THERE IS A PICTURE OF NIGHTSTRIDER DONE BY DEMONATRON! LOOK AT IT!**_

_**Pardon her language this chapter as well. But, this is basically the robot version of physical therapy, and physical therapy, I know for a fact, can make you curse worse then a drunken sailor.**_

_**Random question for everyone to answer: WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE CHAPTER OF GIBTH TO THIS DATE?**_

_**Anyways~ without further adieu I give you the next chapter!**_

_**Chapter 89~**_)

There is a rule of thumb that I have come to know very, very well. The first step to physical recovery is the very hardest, followed second by the first step you set on the ground. For three weeks- _three god damn it_- Ratchet-the-hell-spawn-fucking-hatchet kept me locked in the med bay, unable to get off my stupid hospital bed. I missed Halloween too, damn it, though my Papa brought me an Energon Lollipop. It was damn good too. Anyways, Ratchet said he wasn't going to let me up until I looked less like a human could shove me over with a sneeze, and more like I could shove back. As it turns out, three weeks wasn't enough for me to look totally healthy and not so emaciated like I had before, but it was enough for Ratchet to discern that I was healthy enough for light walking.

But, before I get to the _joys_ of walking after so long of not using my legs, let me tell you of some of the stuff that occurred during my three weeks of being awake and confined to the med bay. I was visited by humans, lots of them really. They were usually in and out faster then mice on speed, but it was the thought that counted. I didn't even know that I was that liked by the majority of the soldiers, who's names I didn't even know.

Sam came and visited along with Carly, but Carly never stayed long. She didn't really understand Sam's fascination with us, it seems. But, Sam got his wish to work with the Autobots. He officially became our liaison with the human government along with Bluestreak. They worked together to get the Autobots the best deals and to ward off the attempts from the humans for technology for weapons. Sam told me that Kartika, Alexandra, and Kureno missed me a lot. Anyways, they weren't the only ones to visit me. Sarah, Will, and little Annabelle came to visit. Anne brought me a little stuffed bear, whish sat on my nightstand. She said she brought it because she hoped I got better, and as a thank you for saving her 'Uncle Hide' from the mean bot.

Mikaela came and visited too, but she was mostly working as Ratchets assistant so she pretty much saw me every day. She talked with me while she was filing reports and stuff, or sorting this and that. Mikaela was such a sweetheart to her patients, when they behaved of course. She nailed me pretty good with a paperweight when I decided to try and get out of bed; right between the optics at about the bridge of my nose plates. It stung too, but it was still one hell of a toss. And it reminded me of Ratchet a lot. It was loud enough too, to summon Ratchet from another room like a raging beast. Lets just say that I got the scolding of my life, all for trying to get up.

The twins were with me a lot when they didn't have patrols. Papa came and visited, updating me on this and that. Apparently, in about four weeks, so around the first week of December, we were supposed to have another Autobot come in. he didn't know whom it was yet, the message too scrambled from distance to really understand. He also said that while I was out of it, we had moved to a new base, and that the climate and biome was something that I would like, though it was too cold for his taste. Now that, in truth, was a little bare. There were a lot of states and placed in the world that were cold. Colorado, Alaska, Nebraska, and Washington all were places that could be cold, along with Oregon and Canada. There was one thing though, that neither him, my bonded mates, my brother, nor anyone would tell me. What state exactly I was in, or even what town. I tried using my internal systems to find my location, but Ratchet disarmed it and said that I would find out when I could walk outside.

And thus, that brings us to my challenge for the day. Walking. I had already gotten most of the use of my arms, neck, helm, hands, and really anything above my waist. My legs though, were pitifully numb. I could hardly inadequately flex my toe. My toe claws still hung out uselessly. As it was, Ratchet was trying to have me do it on my own, to stand first rather, on my own. The twins weren't here of course; because they would probably be coddling me and helping me walk. It was just I and the medic bot inside the med bay, behind a locked door free from any disruptions. Creepy sounding, now that I think on how I said it. Anyways, from a standing position, we would walk slowly around the room and rest a bit more. But, before I could even get to our objective, I had to stand first, and that required equilibrium; something I was sorely lacking today, and my aft had been telling me this for the past hour and a half.

"Damn it femme, where did your coordination and skill at standing _upright_ go to?" Ratchet, the cold-hearted fucker, was leaning on the wall about twelve feet from my bed. His arms were crossed, and he was gazing at me with pure amusement.

"Idaho." I grunted. My hands were fisted on the bed, though I raised one to flip the bird at Ratchet briefly. My legs were dangling, touching the floor, the cool feeling of the cement and tile creeping up through the not so sensitive metals that made up the pads of my feet.

"Try again."

I growled at Ratchet, a simple snarl of the engine. "I'm trying damn it, give me a moment to rest."

"A moment can make a life saving difference." He spouted back.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." I barked. I strained myself upwards, tottering on unsteady legs. My door wings fluttered wildly, trying to find some sort of balance on my numb legs. I ended up toppling backwards onto the bed with a loud oomph noise. I just lay there, and then I snagged my pillow. I stuffed it over my face and began shrieking out every possible curse and profane language that I knew, including some various words in Spanish that I learned from fig, and a couple in German that I had learned from Mikaela, who had learned them from one of the new recruits. When my little fit was over, I discarded the pillow.

"Feel better?"

I flipped him the finger. "Fuck you."

"I thought you might say that." Ratchet tsked. "Now, up you get onto the bed. Let me stretch your legs. It might help." I had to have some assistance, but together Ratchet and I got myself settled flat on the bed with my legs stretched out. I laid my hands at my sided, and looked at Ratchet.

"How is this going to help?"

"Just watch."

Watch I did, among other various vulgar things. Ratchet took one leg at a time and stretched them. First, he started them by miming the walking motion, to 'get the energon flowing properly' so he claimed. He walked my legs for about thirty minutes, easy going because I didn't have any weight on my legs and I wasn't the one moving them. So that part wasn't too bad. But when he started contorting my legs, then, and only then did I complain. And I complained a lot.

As Ratchet was in the midst of forcing my legs upwards and sideways with him adding bits of his own weight, I decided to voice my opinions. "What the fuck are you doing? Damn it!" I howled. I couldn't go anywhere to get away, so thus, I was unfortunately stuck where I was. "Stop! That hurts like hell! I'll just keep trying to walk, damn it! Let me go!"

Was I let go? Eventually, when Ratchet decided that he was done with me. Physical therapy, if done right, can, indeed, be a form of torture, much like listening to any of the movies little Annabelle likes to watch. I writhed my arms and door wings as the energon flow to my legs increased with the unwilling movements. Ratchet bent my legs in every which way; up, sideways, pretzel, straight up, bicycle, and a bunch of other complicated ones that if I wasn't as limber as I was from my time interfacing with the twins, I'm sure my legs would haven't been able to do it. I howled, I thrashed, I protested, and I'm pretty damn sure I had some energon leaking from my optics.

"Fuck! Let me go!" I wailed. "I'll walk, damn it, I'll walk if you let me go!"

Ratchet snorted. "If you were ever captured by Decepticons, you would have spilled the beans long ago."

"Fuck off, Doc-bot!" I snarled. "I would not, thank you oh so much!" I thrashed, trying to pull my legs from his grip. "Now go frag off and let me try and fucking walk!"

"Zip it with the language and I will." He snarled back, bending my leg in another stretch, in a way that it wasn't ever meant to go into. I made such a noise that I would never be able to recreate. Ratchet patted my leg. "Good kid."

"Fuck off asstard." I said nothing more after that final thing.

It was shortly after when he let me go. He moved to help me sit up, and I, admittedly not in one of my smartest moments due to the aggravation that I was feeling, decked him. Ratchet stumbled back, and I sat myself up, using my hands to swing my legs downward. I shot Ratchet a rather nasty look, my antenna down and my door wings pinned back with my optics narrowed, as he sat there leaning on the wall on the other side of the room, well out of my reach, and rubbed his jaw.

"… I deserved that." Ratchet admitted.

"Yes you did…" I glared. Then I sighed, ribbing at the sore spots on my legs. "But… No pain, no gain."

"That's right." He said. "Now, try walking again. One time with therapy might not be enough to do much difference." Ratchet moved from the wall back to where he had been in the last place, before he went all torture fiasco on me. His hand still rubbed his jaw. "You have one hell of a right hook, you know that right?"

I grunted my affirmative. "That's why I'm a close combat bot."

"Indeed. Now, walk."

I grunted, hissing softly as I set the pads of my feet on the floor. I could very faintly feel the pressure in the pads of my feet. I thrust myself forwards, wobbling as my legs wobbled. I stumbled forwards, catching myself on the wall. Ratchet moved forwards to help me stand, and I held out my arm. "Okay, Ratch, just don't let me fall and I'll do most of the work."

"If you say so brattling." He held me up slightly, and then I walked slowly forwards, wobbling as my legs tried to make sense of the stuff that I was making them do.

If you've ever seen a drunken man walk, or maybe a newborn calf with its first steps, imagine them combined together into one foul stumbling mess. That's what I looked like, supported by a _very_ amused medic as I tottered around the room. For probably close to about an hour, maybe an hour and a half, Ratchet guided me around and around the room with seemingly endless patience. I was getting quite frustrated with it, the endless walking and not seeming to get much better at my drunken gait.

I paused briefly, leaning on the wall to rest for a moment. "Okay." I said. "Ratchet? I'm going to try this on my own."

Ratchet gave me a calculating look. "I don't think you'll be able to do it quite yet. Give it more time."

"Oh, Ratchet, you have such little faith in me." I quirked an eyebrow plate at him. "How about a bet?"

Ratchet seemed to contemplate this. "A bet for what?"

"Well, if I walk to my bed without you helping, you have to tell me what state I'm in." I said. I thought a bit on what to tell him if I lost. I couldn't really think on what to give him. "Well, I don't plan on loosing, so, if I do lose I guess, you can request any one thing from me."

"How about you never swear again as a patient in my med bay, unless you lose a limb. Fingers and toes wouldn't count."

I shook my head, my antennas twitching upwards. "No. How about you limit it to one language that I cant swear in?"

Ratchet tsked, but relented after I was stuck leaning there on the wall for a while. "Okay. You cannot swear in _any_ of Earth's native languages as a patient in my med bay again."

No swearing as a patient. Damn, that was going to be interesting. "Alright. Works for me."

"Deal, then." Ratchet leaned his hand over and shook my hand and then he stepped back, leaving me balanced on my own. He remained two big steps away from me, enough that he could help if I were to face plant and fall on my aft, but far enough that my body wouldn't try and subconsciously seek out help. "Go on then, miss cocky, and show me you can do it."

I did so. I moved from the wall, balancing myself slightly. It was just like teaching myself to walk again. Memories from my sparkling days zoomed to the forefront of my processor, from when I was slowly, ever so slowly, teaching myself how to walk. I put my left foot forwards, my right leg being my dominant out of the two. I wobbled a bit, my right leg struggling to keep my weight supported and balanced without the aid of another Autobot or my other leg, my door wings and arms flailing to get me some sense of balance, until I set my foot down flat, but other then that, my first step on my own was a success. The next step, and the next were all right as well. It wasn't until I was almost to my bed that my balance began to go wacky. So, I had to force my legs, which were slowly, ever so slowly regaining feeling and some form of conscious control, to hold my weight for a bit until my equilibrium stabilized again. Then, I made it the last few steps, and then let myself fall onto my bed with a satisfied grin.

"I win!" I crowed. "You have to tell me where we are now, and I can curse all I damn well want!" I turned myself over, my legs not really doing much more then acting like superficial noodles. When I was settled on my bed sitting up, I flashed Ratchet a cocky grin.

Ratchet was standing there with the most shit eating grin in the universe. He tapped his helm. "Reverse psychology works wonders, my darling patient."

I flipped him the bird, but looked at him eagerly anyways. "Well?"

"Oregon." He simply said. "I figured that would be your first guess. Looks like I overestimated your guessing capabilities, brattling."

I was home. Completely home, in my home state. That would explain why everyone was complaining of the cold. Now that I knew that the cold was from home, I didn't really give a damn whether it was freezing, or molten hot. I was _home._


	90. Human Interactions

(_**Well, hello my readers! I'm glad I got this much feed back from you all! Well, anyways, this is a bit more of a time jump, but it's more or less to get us more peoples and stuff, though I don't always write everyone in. Because honestly, I'm too lazy of a writer, which is why I haven't actually written my own book, to balance out a conversation or meeting between 33 plus different robots and how ever many odd plus humans there are in this giant world of Transformers.**_

_**Bah. I feel lazy when I say it like that. Anyways, I have special thanks to all my readers, but also to SeekerLuna, who surprisingly had kept my mind somewhat grounded with coming up with stuff, so that I usually have some sort of random idea thanks to her. Also, to my lost brain twin, Zayren Heart. Where art thou, sister mine? My brain doth miss our talks.**_

_**Anyways, I got myself a journal now. And that journal is going to house all my note cards, one I transcribe my scribbles. So, instead of twenty-five odd note cards, one fourth of the hundred card stacks that we buy, that were written back to back with scribbles, it'll all be in one nice and neat journal.**_

90 chapters. All I can say is holy Primus! That's a lot! I tell my mama this, and she says she's proud and then complains because I wont get off my ass and write my own original story. I started one, I kid you not, but I only have one chapter done and have come to a roadblock with the second. Hmm…

_**IF I WERE TO GET MY CHAPTER FROM MY ORIGINAL STORY OFF MY SCHOOL HARD DRIVE, THEN WOULD YOU ALL BE INTERESTED IN READING AND TELLING ME WHAT YOU THINK?**_

_**Bah. I'm rambling now. Anyways, enjoy the chapter~ Chapter 90! Gah. I still can't get over the fact that I'm only 10 more chapters away from reaching my goal!**_

_**Dirge wave belongs to Faecat. I had previous permission to use it so long as I gave credit. Sorry about the chapter shortness, its been a long couple of days and this chapter didn't want to be written. BTW, the teens mentioned are basically based off my class mates.**_)

It's been a little over four years since I started walking again. Four years is a long time, and a lot of stuff can happen in that long, long time. Now, no one died, so that was a plus, but we had gotten nine new fighters to add to our quarry. First Aid landed in November four years back, and has been working with Ratchet and MoonRacer since then. As for MoonRacer, well, apparently she was a medic and Ratchets Sparkmate. Who knew? Anyways, MoonRacer landed somewhere in Nebraska, and aside from those two, we also had members of Air Raid's trine arrive. Skydive, a rather boisterous mech, and Silverbolt. Both just up and landed on our base, so it occurred to us that Air Raid had probably given them the coordinates. We also had Blurr arrive eight months after First Aid, and he landed in Utah. Cliffjumper showed up not long after that, traveling with some massive mech. The considerably sized mech was Ultra Magnus, who stood exactly twenty foot higher then myself. Bulkhead, a rather heavy but generally very cheery fellow, arrived last year. Tracks arrived shortly after Bulkhead, and has been causing trouble since then. Tracks and Sunstreaker do not get along. At all. It has quite literally come to blows with them before. They wrecked the rec room, and also managed to damage the Training room. How they managed to do that, in a room designed to take more of a beating then Ironhide can dish out.

Anyways, they all came claiming they'd followed the origins of the dirge wave we had sent out shortly after I had started walking normally again. The dirge wave, created using satellites and a machine that Wheeljack had invented, quite literally made all our sorrows well up until it overwhelmed us, to the point where we could feel each and every one of _every_ bots sorrows, worries, and grief's. Then, in one big wave, took it all away, washing it out into space for any other bot out there to be hit by it, leaving all of us feeling numb, tired, but at peace for once in a long, long time. Well, until the machine Wheeljack made decided to self-destruct, taking out half the power of the base for a week and leaving four tanks blown to bits. We had gotten into a lot of trouble for that one, but it was worth it in the long run.

We had some new arrivals that didn't come from space as well. I became a sister for a second time. Elita-1 had a sweet giggly little mech two years ago, and named him Borealis. An odd name, but it fits him in a way. Anyways, everyone never addresses Borealis with that name. He goes by Bo, and is always persistent that anyone he talks to calls him Bo. But besides Bo, who took after Elita in height and body type, we had two other arrivals. Chromia and Ironhide had twins around the same time Elita had Bo. Chromia's twins, both mechs, who were surprisingly well behaved. Or, at least one is. Anyways, both boys are the spitting image of Ironhide, and nearly identical. The only way to tell them apart is to look on top of their heads. Alpha, the first-born and the least troublemaking of the twins, doesn't have horns. Beta, the second born and the biggest pain in the ass since I was a sparkling, has bullhorns on his head. They both have alt modes, believe it or not, and Beta's horns are on the hood of his alt mode; a GMC Topkick, black in color, the same as his brother has. Anyways, we have another one on the way too, but its not one that I'm capable of delivering. Jazz is expecting a sparkling, and with mechs, the births are cesarean pretty much, because their body's can conceive with the add-on but cant adjust their hips wide enough to pass a sparkling through.

With three new sparklings running around with Leo, who stands about eleven feet tall now, and Velocity, who outgrew Leo once more and now stands at thirteen feet, its been a hectic mess. Leo and Velocity are now more or less teenagers mentally. Leo's still awkward around the femmes, and is easily embarrassed, but… he's grown in ways too. He's mature for his age; but I contribute that too having been caught and temporarily losing his arm to a Decepticon last year. It had been a drone, slightly mindless, and it had found Leo and Bo out in the forest that surrounds the base. It didn't do any lasting damage to my brother, but it had made Leo fight to protect his brother, and see just exactly what war is like. Anyways, off the bunny trail, Leo and Velocity are 'dating' in a way, mainly because Velocity asked him and Leo never said no. They're adorably shy about it, only holding hands when they think that no one is looking.

With me walking, you'd think I'd be fully healthy. Well, I am for the most part. But these past few days I've been more tired then usual, and I've been drinking a slightly bit more energon then usual. It started shortly after we got to our destination, and has been persisting. Its been making helping the humans difficult without tiring myself out, but I deal with it pretty well. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe lend me energy over the bond when I need it, and haven't been pestering me about Ratchet to go see what's wrong. They figured that it was probably something to do with the shift in weather the past few days, the rain a week prior haven given away to hot and unbearably bright sunlight, something rare to Oregon for long. They simply said that if it persisted through out the next eleven days, then when I got back to base, Ratchet would need to take a look. I didn't disagree.

As for the Chicago incident… well, it was official. The whole world, civilian and otherwise, knows about Cybertronians. Like every civilization, you have your groups who think we're all here to take over the world and steal all the human spleens, which thank god are like, a one in one thousand minority, and then you have your groups who are curious about us, slightly fearful but curious none the less. Those people who were bold enough to ask for us to come to public places were few and far between, but have been steadily growing these past years.

Papa, who is all for HPI to help improve our HPR, Human Public Interactions and Human Public Relations respectively, has been working with the government, local polices, and other people to set up social events where people can go to places and meet selective Cybertronians and learn a bit about why we're here. So, if you've ever been to country fairs, then you know that they usually have an arena for Rodeo's and what not. Well, that's usually where we've been congregating. So far, Papa's sent us out for humans to meet, and so that we can try and help the civilians understand us and fear us less. So far, it's actually worked. As for the bots that have been sent out, well, Bluestreak has gone, Bumblebee, which from the polls that the humans fill out about their favorite Autobot, is a favorite of the little kids and some teenagers, Jazz has gone along with Prowl. Air Raid went on a couple as well, and so have Elita-1, Sideswipe, and Chromia. Today it's my turn, along with Sunstreaker and Bumblebee.

We're here in my home-states state fair, in one of the cattle barns that had been converted for our comfort for a few days until the Swine barn emptied out, and the Guernsey dairy cows came into the barn we're currently situated in. How long are we here you ask? Well, this is the first official day of the fair, and we're here from August 24 through September 3rd. We'll probably end up moving barns frequently, every couple of days or so. But anyways, we'll be recharging here in the barn in our bipedal modes. As the whole world knows of us, there's no real reason to hide.

Currently its ten PM, and the last group of people for the day are in the midst of their trip through to see us. There are around twenty eight people in this set, twenty of which are little kids ranging from five to twelve, three are teens, and the last five are the parents keeping an eye on the kids, who had all come as one big group. The majority of the kids flocked to Bumblebee, him being the voted favorite of the day. A couple parents went to bother Sunstreaker, much to his chagrin, along with the kids who didn't flock to Bumblebee. The three very bored looking teenagers came and glanced at me, reading the info on a little backboard thing that had some of my history on it. Unfortunately, whoever wrote it, having not done it myself due to the size difference, failed to mention that I was female.

So the question that I had heard several times today popped out of the blond haired girls mouth. "So, Nightstrider." the blondie said. "Are there any girls in your race? Or are you all, like, unsex or something?"

I was sitting cross-legged on the cement, my arms propped on my legs, so I guess my figure wasn't really feminine when sitting down. Focusing my optics on the blond girl, I chuckled wryly. "You have no idea how many times I've been asked that question today." I shifted softly, my door-wings twitching. "Well, for your information, I'm a girl."

The blond girl giggled. "I kind of figured that out when you started talking, though your voice is the deepest I've ever heard in a girl."

A tall brunet girl with wide hips let out a very loud snort. "Nice one Lena." The brunet girl looked from 'Lena' to me. "So, you're a giant robot?"

I looked over myself. "It would seem so."

The brunet cackled. "Bitchen!"

"Amy!" Lena scolded, "Don't curse! Save that for the dairy farm."

Amy chortled. "Yeah, yeah, Lena. I'll wait until we get over to the cows before I start my damn cursing again."

I vented slightly. "So is there anything you wanted to know?"

The other blond girl, much shorter then the other two and reminding me of a very blond Kirsten Stewart from the movie 'Catch That Kid', spoke up cheerily. "Yeah! What was your planet like? Pretty? Big?"

Ah, yet another question I had been asked previously. "I've never actually seen my home planet." I answered. Or, at least in this body I haven't.

"Really?" Amy chirped. "Why? Were you like, shipped off or something?" She rocked forwards in her work boots slightly. "'Cause that's just not right, man, not to see the very planet you came from."

I shrugged. "I guess. I wasn't even born yet when the war destroyed our planet. I don't really have many memories from my childhood ether, only that my mother was kind and loved me a lot."

"What about your dad?" the short Kirsten Stewart look-alike asked.

Lena smacked her arm. "Courtney!" She scolded. "That's personal information!"

"Its quite alright Lena." I said. She grinned when I said her name, obviously amused. "Lets see…" I murmured, shifting my legs slightly so I could get more comfortable. "I didn't really have one until my commanding officer adopted me as a sparkling when I crash landed here." I answered. "I guess my biological father is out there somewhere; I just don't know where, or perhaps he doesn't want to find me. Anyways, I'm happy with the mech I've come to call my father and my adopted mother."

Amy blinked up at me. "Your pretty open about this stuff, aren't you?"

One of my antennas twitched as I nodded. "Indeed. I have no reason not to be. Besides, it is my job to answer what I can."

"Okay." Amy tapped her foot slowly, propping her hand on her waist. Then she snapped her fingers. "Okay, so, first, what's a sparkling, and second, how do you Cyberbannas or whatever have babies? Do you just build 'em like Lego's and then flip a switch and bam, baby robot? Or is something more complicated?"

I couldn't help the full body chuckle that had my shoulders shaking. "Cyberbannas," I commented as I laughed. "That's a new one that I haven't heard before." Amy flushed with embarrassment, but kept glancing at me anyways. "Well, first off, we're Cybertronians from the planet Cybertron, not Cyberbannas. And yes, creating Sparklings, or babies in human comparisons, is more complicated then just building them. You've all had Sex Ed, haven't you?"

Courtney blanched. "Oh gross! Are you saying its like how humans do it?"

I chuckled. "Pretty much. There's some stuff that's different, but it's the same parts used in the same process."

Amy gave a dirty chuckle. "Does that mean robots have robot balls? Like wrecking ball, balls?"

I shook my head. "Nope. They don't have balls."

Lena looked up at me quizzically. "And you know this how?"

I wasn't about to spill my sex life to a bunch of human teenagers, so I simply pulled up an excuse. "Well, any of the femmes, females of our kind, that have had sparklings, have used me for their midwife. Consequently, the first delivery I ever did was a boy. I delivered my brother when my adopted mother was having him. So, I've seen a naked baby boy robot. That's how I know."

Courtney nodded. "Oh. That's kinda gross. I've delivered baby pigs before, but humans? Yuck. I don't know how you did it with your own species."

"I didn't really have a choice." I said. "My mother was apparently in labor for some time and never bothered to inform our medic, who had gone off of base. I was the only on one base with the info downloaded into my head at the time, and so I got stuck with the job."

Lena blinked excitedly at me. "Was it scary?"

"Not really. Nerve wracking yes, but scary, no a lot." I chuckled. "Since then I've delivered four other sparklings, including my little brothers girlfriend."

Courtney cooed. "How cute! What's your brothers name?"

"Leo." I chuckled. "I also have another brother, but he's much younger then my first. His name is Borealis, but since that's a mouthful, I call him Bo."

Amy grinned up at me. "So, do you have a boyfriend?"

"Husbands actually." I answered.

"Husbands, as in plural?" Lena asked. "Isn't that… What's the word… Polygamy? Isn't that illegal?"

I shook my helm. "Not with our race. And, as it is, my husbands are bound to me more then any human marriage could ever, ever do. We cant ever separate or divorce, unless we die, because our very souls are bound together. I only have my husbands because they are what's called a split-spark, when their soul split into two different bodies."

Amy let out a low whistle. "Gives a whole new meaning to 'Until death do us part', aye?"

"Indeed." I chuckled.

"So, like, if you tried to put your husbands back together as one, would it work?" Courtney asked.

"Good question to ask, but no." I said. "If you want an image, imagine a person with multiple personality disorder. There are different usually clashing personalities, and while they are all the same being, they each want to make their own decision. Now imagine each personality in its own body, dependant on its own. That's what my mates are essentially like in a way, if you want it in human terms."

"Oh." Courtney murmured. "I see! Thanks for explaining it."

I nodded, glancing at the group of people leaving. "You know, I think that your group is going."

Amy looked over and cursed. "Shit. Alright, well, I guess we'll probably come back tomorrow to ask more questions then."

I nodded. "Alright."

Lena waved. "Bye then Nightstrider!"

When the girls had exited with their group, I sighed, curling in on myself tiredly. The humans came and closed the giant metal doors to trap out the cold air and any wandering human visitors from accidentally or otherwise wandering in and disturbing us. The temperature was already dropping, so my joints could attest, and I was thankful for the reprieve from the cool wind that had been blowing in. it wasn't that much of a bother, but it would have been later.

Sunstreaker came over and sat down by me, wrapping his arms around my shoulder and leaning me over so I rested half on his chest. "How you feeling babe?"

"Mmm." I said. "Tired, but I'm alright."

Sunstreaker pressed a kiss to my antennas and helm, and then scooted my display stuff away from me. "Here Babe, go head and rest your head on my leg."

I settled myself down and smiled lovingly up at him. "Thanks Sunstreaker."

"No problem." He grinned. "Besides, I had it easy. I had boring adults pestering me most of the day. You got stuck with the nosey teenagers."

Bumblebee let out a warble. "I got stuck with the little kids, but they were fun to talk with! So many strange things to ask!"

I chuckled. "Kids love you 'Bee. I had one of the teens from earlier today say that you look cuddly and squishy."

Bumblebee let out a cheery chirp in reply.

I let out a laugh and dropped my arm over my optics and shifted to lie on my side. Sunstreaker stroked my helm with a side thought as I got myself comfy. He spoke to Bumblebee. "Bumblebee, why don't you rest tonight? I'll keep watch, and you can take it tomorrow."

"Aye, aye Captain!" the cheery voices from the spongebob opening sounded from Bumblebee as he came over to plop down by my feet.

I chuckled. "I'll take the day after tomorrow for watch."

Sunny chuckled. "Only if you feel less tired by then, Babe. If not, then, well, we'll pull swing shifts."

I snorted. "No you wont. As acting medical officer for this mission, I can manipulate that power unfairly and make you both let me stay up."

Bumblebee warbled. "But you're too nice to do that!"

Chortling, I retorted, "There goes my reputation."

"Babe," Sunstreaker stroked my helm. "Your never going to be able to work up the reputation that Ratchet has. I can't see you keeping it for long, anyways, if you did get it."

"Bah. You're both such nonbelievers."

"Then prove it!" Bumblebee chirped.

I thought for a moment. "Nah. Too lazy to do that."

"That's what I thought."

"But I will be taking my shift."

"We'll see."

"My ass."

"Go to sleep, femme, your tired." Sunstreaker scolded.

I dropped my arm and offlined my optics. "I think I just will."


	91. Purgatory

(_**Hiya, and happy April fools~ nope, I'm not mean enough to prank ya'll. Really, I'm not. And the teacher mentioned here are all teachers that I've actually had. Anyways, enjoy chapter 91~**_)

As the eleven days at the Oregon State fair passed and drew to an end, I had begun to get suspicious that I had a virus. I was still tired through out the whole thing, never getting better or worse. As it was, I almost nodded off during the day with the humans around, and it was Sunstreaker yammering through our bond that kept me awake, along with the frequent visitations of Amy, Lena, and Courtney. Those three girls seemed to be fascinated by Cybertronians, and every day they would come through several times, simply to chat with us. Sometimes they bothered Bumblebee; sometimes they pestered Sunstreaker, much to his chagrin, but usually they flocked to me, no matter how much their guide asked them if they wanted to talk to the others. Eventually they ran out of questions, so they simply talked, wanting to know my history, and for me to seemingly know their whole life history. They spoke of other classmates, teachers, their cows, the class clowns, and the most danger prone people in their class. They expressed an extensive dislike for some of the Forestry kids, because apparently they're 'stuck-up snitches'. The few Forestry kids who had time to come by had seen this, and then accused the FFA kids of being the 'Future Fags of America'. High school drama never ceases to amuse me, and annoy me.

On the last day, when we were loading up to be transported in a trailer back up to the Umatilla Army Depot near Hermiston and the Washington-Oregon border, the trio of girls came to say farewell, dragging along a rather reluctant elderly man who was identified as their Agriculture teacher due to the tag on his breast pocket. He was speaking lowly to the three girls, who had holds on his flannel sleeves, as they dragged him forwards, near our trailer.

"Amy, Courtney, Lena." I greeted offhandedly as I turned and walked towards them. Bumblebee was being loaded up into the trailer, though they had a couple of them there to see which one would fit all three of us, if it did, and if it didn't, then one of us would be riding in one of the spare truck trailers.

"We came to say goodbye." Lena said. "And also to introduce you to our Ag, or Agriculture teacher. He's the favorite teacher we told you about."

I knelt, offering one of my little hands that extended from my fingertips for the man to shake. "Nice to meet you, sir." I said. The man nodded, shaking off his students gently, and took my little hand to shake. "My name is Nightstrider, I'm an Autobot who generally does the jobs no one else volunteers to do."

"Nice to meet you, then, Nightstrider." The man said, his voice deep, almost deep enough to sound like my Papa's in a way. "I'm Dave, Dave Bonebreak." Dave gave me a tentative smile under his salt and peppered beard, the corners of his eyes crinkling slightly with age.

"Nice to meet you Dave." I said, pulling a tired grin up on my face. "These girls have told me much about you, and your students."

Dave chuckled, drawing his hand back. I did the same. "I'm sure they did. These three are good kids, though a bit obnoxious at times."

I nodded. "I bet, I bet."

"Nightstrider!" one of the soldiers who was escorting us home called out to me. "Come on, we got a deadline! Ratchet wants you guys back before nine tonight, and it's already ten."

I sighed, glancing back down at the three and Dave. "Well, duty calls, and I must answer." I gave them a two-fingered salute and stood again. Amy, Courtney and Lena all waved at me, babbling this and that about hoping to see me soon, at another fair, and that they'd be looking for the Cybertronians that were here along with me as well. Then, Amy coerced Dave into waving as well, but he submitted with a simple chuckle and a promise of making a test in Soils for them to do once they got back to the school.

I walked back to the trailer, curling down into my alternate mode and rolling up the ramp to park behind Bumblebee. Sunstreaker pulled in behind me, and I could hear the girls outside loudly discussing which of our Alt modes was the most awesome. Lena seemed to think that Sunstreaker had the sexiest one, which I can assure you boosted his ego another point off the board. Courtney agreed, but she liked Bumblebee's better because she had a 'fantasy of a tall dark and hansom person stealing her away in a Camaro'. Amy blurted out that Courtney had a fetish, and couldn't see that my alt mode had to be the, quote unquote "Best fucking ride through the mud I have ever seen!".

Sunstreaker bumped me softly, telling me to scoot forwards over the bond, that his aft end was sticking out of the trailer and that they needed him to scoot forwards so they could close it. I rolled forwards a bit, still having space between Bumblebee and me. Sunny scooted up some more, tucking himself in close behind me. There was some more noise, and then the hatch that let us in closed slowly, trapping us inside the Semi-trucks trailer. I shifted slightly, adjusting my wheels as I felt the truck beneath us start its bumpy journey all the way back towards Hermiston, back to the Umatilla army depot-base.

:_ Get some rest, Babe.:_ Sunstreaker com linked me. :_ Your tired again, and we have another several hour long ride.:_

_: That I am, Sunstreaker.:_ I said. :_ Does Ratchet know that I need to see him about this?_:

:_ Yes.:_ He answered. : _Why do you think he wanted us home so soon?_:

: _Ah._: I mused. :_ Makes sense I guess.:_

_: Good,:_ he purred. :_ Now go to sleep, Nightstrider._:

:_ Bah, alright._: I sighed slightly, settling down on my shocks. I let my tires slouch, and went to sleep as comfortable as I could make myself in my alternate mode.

…

I awoke sometime later, around eight forty my internal clock told me, with someone pounding his or her hand on my hood. I onlined my sensors first, recognizing the person to be Will Lennox. As his hand descended again to continue to try and wake me, I popped my hood up and smacked him. He rubbed his fist, stepping back and following me as I rolled backwards out of the truck and onto the cement. "Good to see that you're awake, sleeping beauty." He arched a dirty blond eyebrow at me. "Have sweet dreams?"

I grunted as I transformed, yawning and pressing my hands to my optics as me and Will moved out of Bumblebee's way so he could disembark. "Mmmm. I had been, until you pounded on my hood."

"You were snoring." Lennox commented offhandedly. "So, you were hard to wake up."

I snorted, stretching my arms. "Femmes do not snore."

Lennox snorted. "Tell that to my wife."

Ironhide came out, chuckling. "I will, William. I will."

Ratchet stepped out behind him and walked over to me. He snagged my arm and started dragging me off by the forearm. "Sunstreaker," he said curtly. "Fetch your brother so we can all see what is ailing Nightstrider." Sunstreaker nodded, moving to fetch Sideswipe, who, as my bond informed me, was in the midst of setting up a prank for Prowl near his office. Ratchet turned to me, eyeing me as I paced along behind him. "Now, Nightstrider, I have been informed that you have been in taking a bit more energon then usual, and that you have been needing more recharge then any time before, save the time you ferried Ironhide's spark."

I nodded. "You got that right, Doc-bot. Been tired, very tired, and I've been craving more energon. Not a whole lot, but some none the less. Is it a virus? I really don't want another virus." My mind flashed back to shortly after I was back on regular duty, when I went to hack into a computer that had been locked and got myself some type of virus. It had been a miserable experience, feeling fevered in a metal armored body, but also have the shakes and jitters, along with purging anything that was in any of my tanks. I really didn't want a repeat performance. "Definitely not like that last one."

Ratchet chuckled. "Femme, femme, femme, if its what I think it is, then no, you don't have a virus."

I blinked, scrunching my eyebrow plates. I couldn't really recall anything from my medical knowledge that only went from delivering sparklings to repairing fatal wounds, not covering anything else of the virus type or anything else. "If you know what it is, can you tell me please? Your making me nervous." My door wings twitched as we neared the med bay, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe turning the corner in front of us.

"Its nothing to worry much about, if it is what I think it is." He said.

"Your avoiding my question."

"I hope you don't mind rooming with Jazz; He's here on a check-up with MoonRacer, and Skids and Mudflap have fragged over the other rooms with paint and other disgusting messes."

I scowled. "Ratchet." I grunted. "Tell me damn it."

"Nope. Not until I'm sure."

"Until your sure of what, Hatchet?" Sideswipe asked. He sidled up behind me as we stepped into the main room of the med bay, where Jazz was seated on one of the two berths there. Sideswipe snagged me, and did a twirl like someone who does ballroom dancing, and then he bowed me backwards and gave me a breathtaking kiss. When he stood us both upright again, Sideswipe grinned at me. "Welcome home! I missed you."

I chuckled. "I missed you too Sideswipe."

Sunstreaker let out a wry chuckle. "I'm certainly glad you didn't greet me that way."

Jazz suddenly let out a whoop of laughter. "Now, ah don' think 'Atchet likes ya'll sittin' there suckin' face. Ah, howev'a, don' mind a' all." His visor flicked off with a wink and then back on.

MoonRacer, who was bent in front of Jazz, listening to his sparkling moving in his already slightly distended with his Sparklings growth, pinched Jazz's inner thigh plattings. "Quiet you. Whenever you talk, the sparkling moves. Shoosh."

"Yes'm ma'am." Jazz chirped, receiving another gentle pinch when made him twitch slightly.

Ratchet turned to the twins. "Alright, both of you, out. I'll tell you when you can come inside and take your femme home." Both mechs grumbled, but obeyed, not risking taking a wrench to the helm. They took up the positions of sentries outside the door, standing like formidable statues that had some of the humans, the new recruits, scurrying past them to continue their business.

I went and hopped myself up on the other berth as Ratchet went and got something. I flopped back with another yawn, shuttering my optics. "I'm so tired." I complained. "I could just sleep for a week."

Jazz chuckled. "Now ya' know how Ah feel all tha time."

Moonracer sat up with a grunt. "Really Jazz?"

"Mmmhmm."

Moonracer sighed. "Alright, whatever. Your sparkling is completely healthy. Let me get you some of the nutrition filled energon that your sparkling needs." She stood up fully, stretching, and then she moved into the back.

Jazz looked over at me and stuck out his tongue. "Tha Energon tastes nasty." He commented.

I chuckled. "I bet. You only have to drink it because your not a femme and don't make the required minerals needed for your sparklings development."

Jazz sighed. "Yeah, buh' if ah was ah femme, dhen I'd be ah weird look'n femme."

I snickered. "Probably, Jazz."

Ratchet returned with Moonracer. Moonracer handed Jazz an energon cube, and then returned to the back to finish whatever she had been doing after she had been assured that Jazz was drinking it, albeit reluctantly. Ratchet approached me with a scanner type thing, and then he held it out in front of him and started up the screen. It looked like a picture frame with a clear blue screen in place of the picture. It was, however, an internal scanner, which looked for disturbances in the organs of both Cybertronian and humans alike. It made me wonder just what Ratchet was looking for, really, because there were few viruses, as he had told me, that were serious enough to cause internal damage. But Ratchet had also said that he wasn't looking for a virus, so it left me wondering just what exactly Ratchet would be looking for inside my chassis and stomach area. But, he would tell me when he found out.

I remained laid out where I was, and he scanned it over me. Ratchets face was still as his optics rotated, focusing and refocusing. The blue light of the scanner ran slowly down my chest, across where my spark would be, down past where my stomach would be, and stopped around where my bladder would be. He seemed to zoom it in, if the reflection changing on his face was any indicator. Then he simply put the scanner away in subspace and sat me up, dusting off my shoulders.

I looked at him expectantly. "So, what's wrong with me, Doc-bot?"

"Nothing." He said. "Your completely healthy." He gave a grin. Ratchet reached out and patted my lower abdomen softly. "And so is your sparkling."

I blinked. WHAT?

"The look on your face says it all." Ratchet chuckled. "Didn't you ever ponder what would happen when you kept interfacing with your mates?"

I blanched. "I didn't think it would happen while earth was still in the two thousands!" I looked down and touched my abdomen softly. "I'm going to be a mother." Would the twins even want to be parents? Doubt crept into my mind slightly. I couldn't abort it, which would be wrong. But… what if the twins weren't ready? What if I wasn't ready?

Jazz gave a chuckle. "Congrats, Kiddo. We'll be preg-buddies!"

"I… need to go tell the twins." I said.

Ratchet opened the doors, and in stepped the twins. "By all means then, tell them now."

"Tell us what?" Sunstreaker said warily.

"Yeah, what? Is she, like, going to be alright?"

I made a slight grinding noise, drawing the twins closer. "I'm going to be fine. We both are."

"Both?"

I nodded, reaching out careful hands to bring their fingertips to my abdomen. "Ratchet says I'm carrying." I was suddenly embraced, hugged between two bright colors. All I could feel was love, excitement, joy, disbelieve, and more love. It would be all right, I decided. The twins seemed to want the sparkling, and I did too.

I was going to be a mother. Wow.


	92. Face The Music

(_**Okay, sorry about the possible shortness of this chapter :P it's a short and sweet kind of thing, and includes some violent and nonviolent things.**_

Any spelling mistakes are the result of PrimeStarScream trying to help me fix them and keeping me company :P that and my spell check died half way through the chapter.

So I got my original story up, it's on my profile, and its only a chapter, but its called All In A Days Work. Give it a peek will you? Let me know if it sucks or not.

_**Enjoy chapter 92~**_)

I lay out on our bedroom berth, my arms settled on the top of my chassis with the twins curled at my sides. They had took me back to our room for a joyous bedroom romp, and romp until morning we did. Well, not until morning, but more or less until one o clock in the morning, and then we went to sleep until eight. Its nine o clock now, and we've been just simply snuggling for an hour. Or, rather, I've been snuggled, kissed, and nuzzled and there's nothing I can do about it.

Sunstreaker let out a long rumbling purr that vibrated the soft plates of my stomach. "Hello little one." He cooed softly. "Its one of your Papas here." He pressed a chaste kiss to the plates.

Sideswipe pretty much mirrored his brother, but he pressed multiple kisses along my abdominal plattings. "I can't believe we're going to be parents. I've had several hours to grasp it; and yet… it still boggles my processor." He gently ran his fingertips over my belly, as if the full pressure of his fingers would damage the sparkling within me. "Is this all real?"

I gave a soft chuckle. "Well, love's, by the fluttering excitement in my spark, I'd say this is as real as it gets." I ran my hands over their helms softly. "I honestly didn't think it was real ether… but it explains the exhaustion that I've been having." I gave a slight chuckle when my tank gave a low rumble, demanding to be energized. "And the hunger for a bit more energon that seems to be insistent on plaguing me at every perfect moment."

Sunstreaker chuckled and kissed me softly on the stomach plattings. "Then in a minute all three of us can go get some energon from the rec room. I want to spread the news!" he nuzzled me. "We're going to be creators!"

I chuckled back. "We're going to have to tell my parents you know. Papa will slag you over worse if we don't tell him now, and he finds out via word of the mouth later on." There was a collective groan through the twins. "I know, I know, your probably remembering when we told Papa and Elita when we were getting married."

"That's exactly what I'm remembering." Sunstreaker said dryly. "I really, really, really don't want to go running for my life from my father in law…" He pressed a kiss to my stomach again.

Sideswipe chuckled softly against me. "He wont harm us; after all, we're needed to be here with Nightstrider."

I let out a soft chuckle. "Indeed. Now, be a dear and help me up. I'm hungry for a nice cube of energon." The twins let out identical sighs, but sat me up anyways. When they got me sat up, they stood and pulled me to my pedes. I let out a wry chuckle. "Come on. I'm going to call my family to the rec room so we can tell them the news over some energon."

Sunstreaker pressed his hands to his face in a sigh before he slipped an arm around my waist. "Babe, when our interface rods have been forcibly removed by your father, then you're going to regret us ever telling them this."

Sideswipe sidled up on my other side, rubbing his helm on my shoulder affectionately. "Yeah, Princess. There are things that can be replaced, and some things that cant. Those happen to be irreplaceable mech equipment."

I twitched my antennas and door wings softly as the door opened with a soft _whirr_. We stepped into the hallway, pretty much conjoined at the hip. I sent them love and devotion over the bond. "Then I guess it's a good thing that I'll love you even if your interface rods have been decimated by my fathers energon sword." I joked softly.

"Bah." Sunstreaker sighed. "You'd still love us even if both of us only had one arm, half a leg, and were missing one of our optics, wouldn't you?"

"Indeed."

Sideswipe bumped me gently. "Alright, we get it. We're yours no matter if we have an interface rod or not. Now comm. link your father, have him meet us there."

I nodded. :_ Papa?:_

_: Nightstrider?:_ I received the clear reply in my fathers voice. He had obviously been awake for some time, probably filling out paperwork and other things that he, as our leader and Prime, had to do. It made me pity his job. I would never make a good Prime. :_ Is something wrong? I had heard that you were in the med bay after getting back, but I never heard why or what for.:_

I chuckled softly. _: Papa, if you'll bring Leo, and Mama to the rec room, I'll tell you. Leave Bo with Chromia; this is something he wouldn't really understand like you and Mother, and Leo would.:_

_: …Is there something wrong, Nightstrider? You know I will do all in my power to help you fix it.:_

_: Papa!: _I gave an exasperated sigh._ : I'm fine! Better then fine actually, just a tad tired and really wanting some Energon. Will you come to meet us there, Papa?:_ I leaned my helm on Sunstreaker's shoulder, rubbing Sideswipe's hand softly.

_: I have data pads and papers to fill out, sweetspark.:_ He gave me a regretful tone. :_ I don't know if I can make it…:_

_: This is something, Papa, that you will definitely want to hear. It concerns our family.:_

_: … I see. I will gather your Mother and Leo. As it happens, Chromia's twins are on a play date with Bo, so she's watching him as it is. We'll be there in three. What is your ETA?:_

_: Well, provided that the humans continue to skirt around his like wary sheep, we'll be there in Five. Get some energon for us please?:_

_: Of course Sweetspark. I trust you'll be able to find us in the room?:_

_: Yeah. How hard is it to miss a giant red and blue Cybertronian who stands taller then everyone save Ultra Magnus?:_

Optimus chuckled over the comm. link. : _Not very hard I imagine. Alright, I'll see you there. I can see your mother just ahead of me.:_

_: Alright. See you there Papa.: _I ended the link, sending him affection over our bond, which was usually dampened down unless we were near or talking, so that we didn't disturb each other. I eyed Sunstreaker. "Papa's gonna meet us there with Leo and Elita. He'll get the energon and a table for us all." I rubbed his hand softly, feeling all the different textures of the plattings and the cables and wires that were visible through the breaks in the armor.

Sunstreaker vented softly. "Alright, Babe. If it turns violent, though, we're bolting. He wont hurt you, but… there's no guarantee about us."

"And I will laugh at you while I'm trying to calm him down so he _doesn't _kill you." I said.

When we arrived at the rec room, it was surprisingly empty. Now that I think on it, it was probably empty because it was early in the morning, and those bots that didn't have shift in the morning were probably still sleeping and getting caught up on recharge for later shifts and training exorcizes. Anyways, as we walked in, I spotted my father sitting at a round table with Elita on his right and Leo on his left. There were three energon cubes at various stages of consumption on the table, and three untouched ones in front of three chairs; the chairs we would sit in. I settled myself down next to Leo, Sunstreaker next to me, and Sideswipe next to Elita. I smiled and took a grateful sip of the energon, the energy from the food-liquid rushing through my systems in a refreshing burst like a long lasting energy drink.

"So," Leo smiled happily at me as he sipped on his energon. "What's this news that Papa said you had to tell us about?"

I smiled softly. "Well, first, it isn't just news. Its definitely life changing news, for all of us, but mostly for Sunstreaker, Sideswipe, and myself." I took another sip, teasing the twins gently over the bond as they had a keen sense of unease shift through them as they drank their energon normally. "So, before I tell you the news, Papa, how goes the business with the government with the HPI and the HPR? Good or bad? I didn't have the chance to ask you yesterday."

Optimus chuckled softly. "You're stalling. You like doing that, don't you?" He shook his helm, taking a calm drink of his energon, though an etch of worry did creep out over the bond. "Things are going as well as can be expected, being that human kind can be quite the inconsistent creatures."

I nodded. "Indeed, indeed." I said. I looked at Elita. "How is Bo? Behaving I hope?"

Elita gave a soft venting chuckle. "Sweetspark, when doesn't that mech behave?"

I chuckled. "When you're not watching him. He's a mischievous little bogart." I finished my energon rather quickly, and then Sunstreaker offered me some of his. I politely declined, deciding I'd grab some before we headed back to our quarters. After all, it would be our break in work for the next several days. Or for the next six months, or so, for me once I told Papa the news.

Leo kicked my shin. "So, Sis, what's the news?" He sipped his energon nonchalantly, even when I kicked him back, gently mind you.

I leaned back in my chair, my spark fluttering nervously. My fingers came up to tap slightly on the plates of my stomach and hip softly, tapping out soft little rhythms. I pursed my lips. "Well," I addressed Optimus. "Papa, how would you feel about becoming a grandsire shortly?"

Elita blinked, shocked, as well as Leo. Optimus, however, thrummed softly, his optics flashing across Sideswipe and Sunstreaker before landing boldly on me. "How shortly are you speaking of?"

I rested a hand flat on my stomach. "I'm talking about in five and a half to six months." My antennas twitched. "As in I'm carrying right now, and I found out yesterday. Its why I've been so tired." Everyone was silent for a moment, and my antenna flicked again. Ether my family wouldn't approve, or they would. The question would be, why wouldn't they approve?

Leo lurched from his chair and had his arms wrapped tightly but gently around my middle, or as far as he could anyways, moments later. "I'm gonna be an uncle!" he nuzzled my belly. "I'll be the best uncle in the whole wide world!" I felt his excitement bubbling through our bond, thick and infectious. It spread through my bond with my brother to the twins, but also to my parents. Leo's face lit up. "I'm gonna be an uncle. I gotta go tell everyone!" He bolted away after pressing a giddy brotherly kiss to my belly. I blinked, I kid you not, and he was running down the halls exclaiming about how he was going to be an uncle.

"Well," I pursed my lips. "My brothers excited at least."

Elita rolled around the table and hugged me softly and kissed my cheek. "We're excited, darling, don't get us wrong. Its just we didn't expect to be Grandcreators before we had our fourth sparkling." She gently patted my belly. "We'll be here with you every step of the way." She let out a soft chuckle. "I'm going to stop your brother from waking half the base." She rolled speedily off, calling to Leo all the way.

Optimus leaned forwards in his chair with a soft creak of his joints. Is optics bore into mine before they shifted to the twins. "Do you know what you are committing too?" he asked them. "A sparkling is a life long commitment, more so then even a sparkmate."

Sunstreaker nodded. "Yes." He said. "We both know, and we're fully prepared to help Nightstrider as much as we can."

"Even if that means rubbing her sore pedes every night before recharge." Sideswipe piped in.

Optimus said nothing to the twins, only sighed and started rubbing between his optics. Then he stood and the twins noticeably tensed, ready to run if needed. Optimus paid them no heed as he circled around the table to kneel and embrace me, pressing a soft kiss to my helm. He murmured softly to me. "Are _you_ ready, sweetspark?" I leaned against him slightly and felt him vent heavily.

I chuckled softly. "I'm as ready as any femme can be for impending motherhood. The question is, Papa, are you ready to be a grandfather?"

Optimus sighed and released me, turning me in my chair so I faced him. He looked at me with big deep blue eyes. "I'm only as ready as you can be, my daughter." His faceplates shifted in a smile. "I welcome any grandchild you and your mates may bring into the world. We will help all we can; and I know for a fact that Leo will probably volunteer to baby-sit for you, should the need arise."

I chuckled softly and hugged my father. "I know." I pulled back. "Now, can you go assure my mates that you're _not_ going to cut their interface rods off, please?"

Optimus's optics glinted slightly. "Who said I'm not going to?"


	93. First Movements

(_**my apologies for the time it took to update, but alas school got in the way, and company got in the way :/ so, I'm sorry if this is short, but I've had a long 10 something odd days.**_

_**LETS SEE IF ANY OF YOU CATCH THE FUTURE HINT ON WHAT WILL HAPPEN SOON. HINT: ITS IN THE SECOND PARAGRAPH.**_

_**Love to my Brain twin, Zayren Heart, and to my Rp buddy/other twin {O.o I have two twins} Seekerluna!**_

_**Enjoy chapter 93~**_)

Over two months, so well into my first trimester, there was a bit of growth to my stomach; not enough to completely eclipse my feet, but there is enough of a swell with my sparkling, which is apparently going to be a very big sparkling, to make I so I can only see my feet. It makes me feel like an almost beached whale. As it is, the sparkling has not moved what so ever, or at least not that I can feel from within. It kind of makes me sad, because Jazz, who's roughly a month farther along then I am, said his sparkling started moving slightly at two months. Maybe my sparkling is just lazy. Regardless, I love my sparkling, so do the twins, so does my brother, who is still ecstatic about being an uncle, and so do my parents. Chromia came around with Velocity and Ironhide to wish me well. Velocity is excited too, though not nearly as much as my brother. She promised to make sure that neither Jazz nor myself would get caught in any of Leo and her pranks. I honestly think she'd be devastated if she tripped me on accident.

Anyways, at two months and showing my pregnancy, I've had bots doting on me and I've been constricted to the base and surrounding forests within scanner limits due to the disappearance of Megatron's body five weeks ago from the asteroid belt it had been deposited in and the increase in Decepticon raids on little areas where we store our energon. I haven't gone to any events; I haven't even been aloud to escort anyone to town for something simple like the many boxes of tampons the women at the base needed one month. Hound got stuck with such a duty. Anyways, whenever the twins sensed that my pedes, feet, ached, they would kidnap me off to our room and massage my feet and legs. Other times, whenever Jazz and me would hang out in the rec room, bots would ask us almost constantly if we needed energon; the seekers especially bad about that. Apparently Seekers have these odd programs that make them protective of carrying bots and sparklings; though those programs can be put temporarily and permanently offline, as that's apparently how the Decepticons took out the youth sectors. Regardless, they're overly protective, along with Prowl and Sideswipe and Sunstreaker.

Anyways, I've noticed that when Jazz and I go on walks to talk about the upcoming sparklings, as Ratchet had encouraged us both to spend more time together as carriers because its supposedly 'good for our mental health', that sometimes I see one of the seekers, ether Air Raid, Skydive, or Silverbolt, will fly somewhere above us and pretty much baby-sit us without disturbing us, though if we 'wander to far' they steer us back towards the base. The seekers aren't the only ones that are overly protective. Prowl has gone to extremes to ensure Jazz's continuous happiness, and he has even uncharacteristically teamed up with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe on occasions to spoil the both of us with something kind. It's kind of amazing, as those three are usually at odds and ends about this prank and that.

Not, the normal stuff that usually plagues carrying femmes sucks ass. Mood swings are murder; going from being in a normal conversation to suddenly really, really desiring to interface for hours on end can be quite the inconvenience. Then and again, so can being fairly happy to suddenly nostalgic and wishing for a good cry. It's really throwing me off whack. Jazz, the lucky fucker, has very little mood swings. I've only ever seen him cry once, and that was when the other femmes dragged us off to see some chick-flick, Titanic if I remember right, and we both ended up weeping, Jazz because he liked the movie and thought the ending was sad, and me because I had seen the movie before, and it reminded me of my days as a human with my grandparents and my mama and because I absolutely loathe the movie. Mood swings aren't the only thing though. While I've been plagued by mood swings, poor Jazz has had the pleasant experience of going though the robot version of morning sickness this past week.

That brings me to where I am now. I'm currently knelt awkwardly down in a secluded Cybertronian bathroom stall with Jazz next to me bent over one of the waste disposal bowls emptying his tank via regurgitation. I rubbed his back plates softly as he heaved again, a spray of pink fluid spurting from his mouth. His shoulders trembled beneath my hands slightly. "Easy Jazz." I said softly. "Breathe." I reached a hand over and flushed the disposal unit as Jazz leaned back, resting his hands on the bowl with his optics closed having retracted his visor earlier so that the energon didn't splash onto his visor on its way back out the way it had entered.

"Ah'm tryin'." Jazz rasped, his throat sounding sore. "Ev'ry time Ah think it's ov'r-" he heaved again, though this one was a harsh dry heave. "Mor' jus' keeps comin' out."

"I know, I know." I said. I sub-spaced a rag, which I had taken to carrying around for such occasions as this. Flipping it around in my hand, I leaned forwards and ran it gently across Jazz's lips. "It sucks."

Jazz swallowed dryly and nodded. "Yah. It does." He coughed and let out a kind of burp noise. Then he groaned and leaned his helm on the side of the bowl. "Now Ah know wha' it was like fah yah when yah was losin' yer mind an' purgin' in tha wash racks." His helm moved up again, and he heaved again with a wet noise, and more energon spewed forth, some of it back flowing unpleasantly and flowing out his nose plates.

I blanched with a grimace. "Jazz, my purging wasn't even this bad. On a one to ten scale, mine was like a one. Yours is more like a seven." He heaved again; unable to answer me with anything other then regurgitated energon out his mouth and nasal passages. "Okay, maybe an eight."

Jazz coughed with a wry chuckle and spat into the bowl. I flushed it again for him, and ran the rag over his mouth. He stole it briefly to blow the energon out of his nose. "Eight an' ah half."

I chuckled. "Alright, an eight and a half." We sat there for a bit longer, Jazz purging several more times. As it turns out, Jazz also had spare energon tanks in his body, though his outnumbered mine by two extra, leaving him technically with four stomachs and myself with two. Jazz, in-between purging up all four tanks of energon, informed me that bots with extra tanks were designed to be able to go for long periods of time without access to energon; meaning they would be good at being saboteurs because sometimes saboteurs go 'vorns', whatever those are, without access to any form of energon due to being deep within enemy territory causing all sorts of mischief and collecting useful and valuable information that used to be able to turn the tides of a battle, or help avoid one all together.

Jazz also said that if I weren't so damn tall, or so damned overly protected by my parents and mates, that I would have made a fairly good saboteur with the right teacher. Go figure. I guess there was an extra reason to have that second larger storage tank inside me.

Jazz coughed, having dry heaved several times a minute ago. "Ah think Ah'm okay now." He said. "Mah tanks ar' empt'y now. Ah don' feel like ah gotta purge now."

I chuckled. "Are you sure?" I rubbed his shoulder plates again. "I don't really think its good for the sparklings when we have to make a mad dash across the base to get back 'ere." I blinked. "Damn it Jazz. Your accent is rubbing off on me."

"Not mah fault darlin'." He replied with a soft chortle. "Now yah wana 'elp meh up? Yah 'ave yer door wings tah 'elp balance yer baby-belly. Ah don't got nothin' tah 'elp meh balance."

"Darlin'." I grunted in a halfhearted attempt of a mock, though my attempt at mocking Jazz seemed to mirror his accent almost perfectly. "Alright, give me a moment. It takes me a minute to stand up; my center of balance is off too." I shuffled backwards and braced myself on the wall. It wasn't too hard to lift myself up, though I did have to bend backwards a little awkwardly to get myself standing again.

Jazz turned himself around after flushing the toilet for hopefully the last time, and then he extended a clawed hand out to me so I could help him up onto his feet. I grasped his hand by leaning down slightly, and then tugged all 3600 pounds of him onto his pedes quickly. He overbalanced, and thus ended up ramming into me; myself landing on the locked door of the stall. Jazz's optics flickered as he blinked at where he was leaning on me, the bulge of his belly pressing slightly on my thighs. His face was pressed to my slightly swelled abdomen.

"Well." He chirped, his visor sliding back down to block the view of his optics. "Good thin' our mates ain't 'ere, eh?"

I chuckled. "Jazz, darlin', that spot in my spark is already taken, and I don't date mechs with baby-bellies."

Jazz gave another chuckle and winked jokingly at me. "Ah see. Yah ain't got no room 'n yer spark for a luv affair then?"

I shook my helm, my door wings and my antenna bobbing slightly in amusement. I moved my arms and righted him upright, and them righted myself. "Jazz, my whole spark is taken by the two mechs I love, but there's always a little corner for you, baby-belly and all. If you fit that is."

He shook his helm with a wry laugh and unlocked the door, walking out. I followed. "Ah, well, ah guess ah can' complain. A lil' corner 's better th'n nothin'."

"Indeed." I chuckled. We moved to the counters, and Jazz rinsed out his mouth while I set to cleaning off my rag that had been stained and sullied by Jazz's vomit. I snorted, scrubbing the pink fluid out of the black rag. The bathroom smelled like regurgitated energon. Yuck. When the rag was clean, I wringed the water out of the cloth and then shook it out. I folded it up in nice and neat little squares so I could put it away in my subspace for it to dry. Jazz gargled next to me and spat out a mouthful of energon-vomit laced water. It swirled like some hypnotic circle down the drain, the colors mixing like something you would see on some type of drug trip derived from mushrooms and some other type of hallucinogenic drug. I shook my head, looking away as I dried my hands on one of the towels designed for such a thing as Jazz gargled and spat once more.

The intercom above us crackled, and we both looked up at it silently and curiously. Along with the voice playing out of the intercom, Optimus comm. linked us all. "Attention, all Autobots, Warriors, and Carriers alike, report to hangar three for a debriefing on the latest problem we've just encountered. This is mandatory, unless you are a sparkling, youngling, or are physically unable to come or are confined to the med bay, which Ratchet says none of us should be missing. The debriefing will start in fifteen minutes to give bots that are off base time to get back."

I blinked. "Well, I wonder what sort of problem it is if it includes us."

Jazz shrugged. "Who knows? Maybeh one ah us clogged th' drains."

"I wonder who that could be." I rolled my optics. We left the bathroom, heading off towards the hanger.

When we got to the hangar, with five something odd minutes to spare, everyone was there. All 27 Autobots, 29 if you counted Jazz and myself, were all crammed in the hangar with various humans there as well. The pathway, though, cleared for us via some very helpful seekers who nudged bots behind them and out of our way. I found my way to the twins with Jazz, who also conveniently happened to be standing next to Prowl. When we got ourselves close to them, Jazz went and stood next to Prowl, who held his hand protectively. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe sidled up on ether side of me, looping their arms protectively with mine, giving my swelled stomach little kisses before standing like guardian stones at my sides, supporting me.

"How are you doing, Babe?" Sunstreaker asked gently, pressing a kiss to my cheek. "And what were you doing before you came here? Your armor smells all funny."

"I'm doing fine." I answered softly. "Jazz was purging again, so I stayed with him until his tanks emptied and calmed themselves."

Sideswipe chuckled softly. "Well, that was nice of you, Princess, but it made you smell funny."

I nodded and twitched an antenna. "I'm sure. I guess I'll just have to shower as soon as the meeting is over." I pursed my lips briefly. "Do either of you know what this urgent meeting is about?"

"No." Sunstreaker shook his head. "We don't know. I for one don't even have any form of speculation as to what it could be. Sideswipe?"

Sideswipe shook his helm as well. "It could be anything; the impending sparklings coming, the recent Decepticon attack at the storage facility in Utah, or perhaps something else. I guess we'll just have to wait and find out."

I tsked softly. "But that's no fun!"

Sunstreaker chuckled. "Waiting is never fun, Babe."

"Yeah! We're all ready for the news, so as soon as it's done, we can go cuddle after a nice long shower." Sideswipe chirped to me.

I chuckled softly, and then I paused, feeling something slightly in my abdomen. Then I smiled. The sparkling moved just slightly! I felt it! It was just a little shift! "The sparkling just moved slightly." I chirped. "It moved!"

Sunstreaker grinned along with Sideswipe. "See? I told you he's start moving soon. Do you think we'll be able to feel him from out here?"

I shook my helm. "No, not yet. Soon though; it was just a little bit of movement."

Sideswipe grinned. "I cant wait!"

My father stepped up onto a little stand like thing, a greatly troubled look decorating his face plattings. He crossed his arms slightly across his chassis, eyebrow plates drawing together. Then he looked up, optics scanning over the crowd. "Good." His voice rumbled out. Everyone hushed himself or herself, looking at their Prime and leader. "Autobots, dearest friends, we have received a greatly distressing message from deep within the recesses of space." Papa shifted on his feet. "It is someone we thought long dead and gone, but he is also different sounding."

I pursed my lips, wondering whom he meant.

"It seems," Optimus continued, "That Megatron is once again back and alive." I gasping hush fell over all the Autobots and humans alike. My jaw dropped with an audible clicking sound, and fear twisted itself into my spark. If he found our base, then he could hurt our sparklings; my family. "However," Optimus continued once again. "it seems he is under a different alias. He has sent us a short feedback of his voice, and with it carries a message." Optimus leaned his arm up and pressed a button with his finger on the side of his helm.

The voice that rolled out was a recording of the message, but it was that same voice that made my armor stand up and a slight feeling of my grave being walked over. The voice the same deep, growling, rasp, though there was something even more evil and sinister infused with his voice. "Hello Autobot scum." His voice purred out. "And my kindred soul, my niece, as I'm sure my brother has relayed this to all of his little troupes, not that it matters. I have a message for you, from my master. Master Unicron says for you to prepare your meager forces for your pathetic human planet to be devoured." He let out a laugh. "Master Unicron also says that if you want to survive with your little pathetically sized bodies, you might try to flee, though it wont last you long. Eventually he will eat all the planets. Now, for my message, now that my masters has been fulfilled." There was a hint of something in his voice that made my spark beat faster in fear, the twin's mirroring me.

"My beloved kindred spirit; my niece. Nightstrider," his warped voice purred. "I am coming for you; you will be my heir when your father and everyone around you is devoured. Your sparkling," he seemed to pause, "oh, I'm guessing that you did not know that my master sees all from his vantage place in space. Regardless, Master Unicron is granting me the gift of collecting my heir, and my heirs heir."

I shuddered in my armor. "No, no, no, no, no."

"Now, my niece, my message is done, and to my brother, know this." His voice shifted, malevolence tainting it further. "I, Galvatron, will completely tear apart your personal world, _Prime_. Your mate will die, and all but one of your children will die, ideally before you die as well. Perhaps maybe even to your face. All but my heir will die. All of your game pieces of this giant chess game of life will be annihilated." Suddenly he chuckled. "Remember, Galvatron has warned you. We have made our first move; now we'll see how you retaliate." The message cut off.

It was dead silent, and my processor worked itself into a panic, trying to remember anything and everything from my human days about Unicron and Galvitron. There was a humungous uproar as I simply sat there with a dumbstruck look on my face. Galvatron. Unicron. The sparkling shifted again inside me. Papa tried to gain control of the slight freak out that was going on. Too much at once.

I did just about the most generic thing any pregnant person can do. I fainted, worried outcries following me into the unconscious abyss.


	94. Zydrate

(_**Thanks for being so patient with me :P I know I haven't been updates regularly, but we've had a busy weekend. I kid you not, today on, 4-21-12, we raised a barn and painted the whole damn thing in less then 11 hours in one day. I'm pooped, so I'm sorry if this chapter is short. I wont have time to update tomorrow, as I have new goats coming up that I still need to prepare for.**_

_**BTW, some of the things that are said are clips from Zydrate Anatomy, which is a song that I listened to while writing this. Others are from the songs that they're from, and from my own twisted mind. Some are also lyrics I've written.**_

_**This chapter was just kind of a filler, though if your uber observant, like stalker observant, then perhaps you'll see a hint at what WILL happen in the future. Admittedly, the chapter is a bit more fluff then anything, though not necessarily with the twins :P It'll probably be some of the only fluff we get to see for a couple chapters. Then, probably soon enough, you'll all get to read the thing that I've had planned since chapter 18.**_

_**Enjoy chapter 94~ I love all your reviews, and its steadily working up to my goal of 1000 **____** much love to you all!**_)

I was sitting upright on the medical bed in the med bay with my head on my arms, which rested on my upraised knees. Apparently, after my little fainting session, Sunstreaker and Sideswipe had toted me here so I could be given an anti-stressor drug, so that my stress would lessen so I didn't harm the sparkling. All the anti-stressor did was give me ways of freaking out while remaining calm, after I woke up anyways. Currently I'm completely alone in the med bay, as my Mates had to return to the meeting. They have me blocked off, as do _all_ of my other family members, so that they don't stress me out more. It hasn't been working much… Supposedly, what I gathered from the twins before they shut me out {for my own good; bah!}, was that everyone was supposed to be helping come up with an idea for stopping Unicron from taking devouring Earth.

Shifting, I moved and hopped off the bed. My legs moved numbly, and I started pacing, pondering on what the fuck I was supposed to do if Megatron came after me. If I remember correctly, in the old Transformers movie, a lot of bots died, though I cant remember all of who did. Optimus did, Prowl, Ironhide, Ratchet, Wheeljack, and… Sideswipe did. I pursed my lips, letting off a soft keen. I don't want to lose one of my mates… I don't want to lose anyone! Most of the bots that I remember dying are my friends and family.

There has to be something that I can do. I know that apparently Rodimus saved the day with the matrix, but he's not here, and neither is Hot Rod. Think… What can I do?

There's nothing that I can do… I'm carrying, and Unicron is pretty much un-fucking-stoppable unless you're a Prime. Then and again… what am I supposed to do about the fact that Galvitron still wants me as his heir?

"Fuck!" I hissed angrily. I kicked one of the beds, only succeeding in hurting my own foot rather then damaging the berth. I plopped my aft down and bent awkwardly to rub my sore foot plattings. "I don't know how I can help with this mess!" I furrowed my eyebrow plates, frowning. I felt energon prick at my optics, and pressed my palms to them. "I don't know what to do… How am I supposed to help the others come up with a way to stop the fucking evil god un-maker?"

The doors to the med bay hissed open, and I moved my hands to spot Bumblebee walking through, holding a nicely gushing cable in his arm. Blue energon dripped down his yellow plattings in colorful fountain like spurts, timed with each steady pulse and beat of his spark. He beeped in greeting to me.

I dropped my hands to my sides and stood, gently moving a hand to caress my abdomen before it fell back to my sides. "Hello Bumblebee." I looked up briefly to make sure my optics remained waterless, before I glanced back at Bumblebee. "What did you do to your arm?"

Bumblebee shrugged and beeped softly. "Let's start a riot, a riot! Let's start a riot! Let's start a riot, a riot! Let's start a riot!"

I sighed softly. "Well, hop on up. I'll get you fixed up." This would provide me with a distraction from the whole Unicron and Galvitron situation. I moved and went to through one of my subspaces, one located in my hip plating, locating my medical tools. Tsking, I realized that I was short on medical clamps. I went and snatched a few more from Ratchets store of them. He had drawers full of them on his desk, and why he had that many I really don't know. Nor do I really want to know.

"Oh, Doctor, doctor, can't you see I'm burning, burning. Oh, Doctor, doctor, is this love I'm feeling?" Bumblebee chirped, his doorwings bobbing up and down. He moved and hopped up onto the bed I had previously occupied, his feet swinging merrily.

Chuckling wryly, I moved back to the berth, setting a couple clamps down next to Bumblebee, along with a replacement energon line, cleaning wipes, a hand rag, and my portable welder that I had pretty much stolen from Ratchet. Ratchet, to my knowledge, didn't really care whether or not I stole one, as he had many to choose from. I had simply stolen one of the universal ones, not a high-powered or a low powered one. "Now," I murmured, "who's the one who cut our arm, Bumblebee?" Carefully, I checked to make sure my tools were sterilized.

"Call me Bee, Bee, Bee, Bee'otch!" he chirped. "You spin me right round, baby, right round like a record, baby, right round, round, round, round." There was a static sound, like a station changing in an old station wagon with bad reception. "There was a report of a twelve year old male from Multnomah County stealing a small toy spinning top from a convenience store in Gresham."

I pursed my lips and took a wild guess. "Topspin?"

"Ding, Ding, Ding! We have a winner!"

I chuckled. "It had to be one of the wreakers, didn't it?" Bee didn't reply, so I simply sighed and took the clamps into my hands, extending my littler hands to hold the other cables out of my way when I got to work. "Alright, move your hand for me so I can get to the damage."

"Of course Nurse Lady." The voice of one of the characters from an old cartoon from my childhood blared out. From Animaniacs, if memory serves; Wakko… or maybe it was Yakko. I don't think it was Dot. Whatever.

As soon as his arm was free to shoot out energon at whatever happened to be closes, I moved in and removed his bicep plattings. There, I whistled lowly at the damage. "He got you pretty good, didn't he Bee?"

"He was a real wacko!" Bumblebee twittered at me.

"I can see that." I said wryly. Using my little hands to hold the other cables out of the way, I beheld a rather nice looking missing part of the cable, and a couple damaged nerve wires. "Damn. He got your wires too." After setting the clamps in place, one a few inches from each end of the wound on the cable, I wiped my hands on the spare cloth. Then I dug around in my medical subspace again, and pulled out a few wires to replace the savaged ones, along with a roll of Cybertronian bandages to hold the wires in place. "So what caused the riot?"

"Dispute over plans." He answered simply. I stilled momentarily and frowned stiffly, though I was quick to return to my work of cutting out the old and broken cable to replace it with the new cable bit. "How do you feel?"

"How do you think? I asked back.

"She needs a little help with the agony. And a little help comes in a little glass vial in a gun pressed against her anatomy and when the gun goes off, Miss Sweet is ready for surgery." He answered simply, twitching his doorwings.

I grunted. "Pretty much." An awkward silence fell over us both, the only sound being his occasional beeps and the soundes from my welder. Soon, I had the new cable welded back into place, and wrapped up in the protective bandages, the clams settled safely back into my subspace after a nice thurough cleaning with the cleaning wipes. Then I set to repairing the damaged nerves, which was as simple as just replacing the wires and binding them with the healing wrappings. I cleaned off the energon, and then started settling his armor plating back into its place. When I finished, I patted his leg. "You're repaired. Just take it easy, and avoid any fights."

Bumblebee chirped at me and hopped down. "Aye, aye captain!"

I swatted him softly. "Quiet you. Off you go; your repaired, now shoo." Tuning away from him, I set to tucking away my tools.

There was a tenative shuffling of heavy metal feet, and then Bumblebee tugged me into a soft one armed hug. Bumblebee's voice, very rarely heard fore the stress it puts on his vocal processors, spoke out softly, in his slightly brittish accent. "I don't like seeing femmes so upset, and you carrying makes it that much more sparkwrenching." He spoke clearly, without any static or breaks. "So, please, we don't know what we're going to do yet, but we wont let you or your sparklings get hurt." His fingers twitched from where they rested over my abdomen, his chassis pressed to my side and back.

"Its not me I'm worried about." I spoke back, shifting to also give him a one armed hug, though mine was more of a simple squeeze then a hug. My optics closed with a small click, and then I vented heavily. "I worry about the others; my family, my mates, my fellow autobots. Theres not much we can do against Unicron. Only a god could beat him, if he can control Megatron to the extend of what it sounds like he's doing."

"We'll be alright, Nightstrider." Bumblebee chirped. "We're tougher then we look. Besides, Unicron cant be too big, can he?"

Oh, if only you knew, Bumblebee. If only you knew.

In the movie, I remembered Unicron being much larger then planet earth, which means he would be larger then Primus, as Primus, even as old as he is, is and has allways been the largest Cybertronian I have ever seen. I sighed softly. "I suppose not." I lied, stepping away from Bumblebee. I put the last of my medical tools away, and then took my seat on my berth again. Steadily, I gazed at him. He gazed back, antenna and doorwings twitching uncertainly. "I'll be alright, Bee. Go back to the meeting and kick Sunstreaker and Sideswipe for me."

"Why?" A little girl's voice asked, telling me that Bee was back to sound bites.

"Because they're blocking the bond, and I'm to drugged up on calming stuff to be much bothered by whatever I feel from them."

Bumblebee chuckled in amusment and nodded. "Yes Ma'am." He twittered softly and moved to the door, glancing back at me before he left. "Remember what I said." Then he strode out.

I laid back, settling on my side. Hacking the lights system, I turned off the lights in the med bay and offlined my optics. Not too long later, I felt the twins bonds open, and got their disgruntled feelings.

'_You told him to kick us.'_

'_You were blocking me.' _I scolded.

Sunstreaker gave me a disgrunted sound over the bond._ 'Babe, he scuffed my paint.'_

'_You can fix it later, Sunstreaker.' _I said._ 'I'm… lonesome.'_

'_We'll be there soon, Princess. The meeting is stopping for the evening.'_

'_Okay…'_

'_Get some rest untill then, alright, Babe? I don't want you too tired; not after a day like this one.'_

'_Alright. I'll rest.'_

'_Thank you. We both love you.'_

'_I love you both too.'_

'_Kiss the sparkling for us!'_

'_You idiot, she cant bend like that.'_

I chuckled softly._ 'I'll just wait for you both to get here and take me back to our room. You can do enough of that there.'_

'_Alright. Goodnight, love.'_

Sighing, I settled down to wait, not really wanting to recharge. I stroked my abdomen softly, the plates shifting slightly with each breath I took. At only my first trimester, I was still large. Or, at least that's what Ratchet tells me. The sparkling wasn't moving, so it was probably asleep or resting. I pondered over what I could to to help again, but the twins wiggled their way through the bond and simply poured love and affection at me. Assurance that all of us would be alright, that it would take an act that not even Primus could preform to separate us in any way, shape, or form.

I hoped they were right.


	95. Mothering Instincts

(_**Sorry about the late chapter folks, I've just been busy. I managed to give myself quite the nice gash on my leg, and have not been at the computer due to soreness and tiredness. I've had a busy weekend~ but hopefully this chapter, however long or short it may end up being, will make up for it.**_)

December eighth, its cold outside and for once there is a nice thick blanket of snow coating the ground, turning the constantly green landscape into a gorgeous white winter wonderland. Or at least, to me, whom has spent almost my entire human lifetime living here, it feels like a winter wonderland. Jazz dislikes the cold, but being four out of six months pregnant and being almost the smallest of the bots, it makes it a bit more of an understanding situation. Prowl dotes on Jazz though, and has invested a fair amount of his salary into purchasing a giant specially made heated blanket, big enough for both Prowl and Jazz to cuddle underneath. Believe it or not, it gets used a lot by the both of them out in the recreational room, where Jazz likes to hang out.

With Jazz being roughly four months along, and me falling behind by one month, it makes for some pretty interesting situations, though I can say, with utmost _joy_, that most of my mood swings have passed, leaving me with occasional morning sickness that is not even half as bad as Jazz's was. I still get angry easily though, which sucks, especially when I snap at another Autobot or human when they haven't done anything wrong. Poor Sunstreaker though… he's the most susceptible, via the bonds, to feel my mood swings. Mood swings aside, the sparklings within both Jazz and myself have grown quite a bit. Jazz, as of last week, has not been able to see his feet what so ever, and has been restricted to not lifting anything heavier then a handful of humans. As for myself, well, I could say I'm larger then Jazz, and _I don't know why! _At this stage, with the sparklings frames fully enveloping the spark, Ratchet cant tell me why I'm so big about the middle, and I'm much larger, probably a couple hand widths or so then Jazz. He, Ratchet that is, says it's most likely because the twins and I are so close in height, that the sparkling is just large. He doesn't have scanners that are safe for the sparkling, he had said to me; otherwise he'd scan me for my own peace of mind.

More baby news. My sparkling finally moved! It's like a hyperactive little energizer bunny in my gestational chamber; all hours of the night it kicks, wiggles, and moves. Only when I'm really active, like pacing the halls or going for a stroll in the woods, does it settle down and sleep. In all its wiggling over the past couple of weeks, its only made me purge once. It happened, however, to be all over my father's chassis. That had been embarrassing.

Besides the fact that we're blowing up like big metal whales, the whole threat of Unicron has everyone on their toes. Security has been quadrupled, and us carrying bots always have someone with us, whether it's our mates or various bots to guard us. My security especially, as Galvatron had stated that he was coming for his niece, has doubled, and if my twins aren't there with me, then most of the bots make sure they're usually doing something in the same room as I'm in. Most of them like to be discrete, but the few who don't really give a shit whether or not it looks like they're stalking me, namely Ironhide and Chromia, just sit there and stare at me, moving from room to room, where ever I go. The only privacy I have is in the twins room, with my parents, and if I have to use the wash racks. The latter has the exception of Chromia because she doesn't really care; she follows me in anyways, saying that femmes all have the same parts. We do, nonetheless. I don't have anything she hasn't seen before.

Back to the whole Galvatron thing; there have been attacks in various parts of Oregon, and some in other states like in Louisiana and in Arkansas. The government knows of the impending threat, and by god for once they were helping without speculation that we were doing anything wrong. But… after the whole Chicago fiasco, one would hope this would come to pass. Anyways, the government, most of the governments around the whole globe, has been providing supplies for us to build… well… I guess it's like an earthen version of Teletran, so we can try to gather others to help us fight. This far, its about twenty six percent done. We can pick up messages, as shown by the few taunting messages Galvatron has been able to send to us, depicting the various ways he plans on killing everyone for his master, and how he and Unicron will help rebuild the universe, and how he has plans for me to be Unicron's mistress. Mistress my ass. I'll fucking bite it off.

My big armored feet walked quietly along a well-worn forest path, Chromia following along with Velocity and Leo, who was toting along Borealis too. Little stones and bits of dirt got into the bottom of my feet, and was something the twins would take pleasure in picking out during the shower later tonight. Along with tickling me like crazy. Ah, silly twins. Silly, silly, lovable twins.

"-And then the logger dude said, 'He looks like he ate all the lead paint off his crib as a baby, and then licked off the varnish too!'" Velocity chuckled; retelling something she had seen on some show about logging she watches. "And the guy did! Like seriously! His head was huge, but his face was all like, towards his chin and stuff! His forehead was the most prominent thing."

Leo chuckled, my little brother's hand wrapped loosely around his girlfriend's hand, his other hand holding his brothers bottom as little Bo snuggled lightly on his chest, burbling happily. "Some humans are so weird looking; Ratchet says, though, that its rude to comment on it because it could be from one of the many defects and illnesses that plague the humans that caused that." Velocity blinked at him with a chuckle. "Yeah, I know, I'm a nerd. But I actually _listen_ to what the hatchet says."

"I listen to him too," she scolded, "Just… it usually goes in one audio and out the other. I'm more interested in making things go boom then fixing the things that I've made go boom." Velocity chuckled and leaned her head over, resting in on his arm and shoulder.

Using my ability to take a snapshot with my optics, I stored the image of them away in my processor. To be honest with you, they looked like a young family; a husband, wife, and little toddler, going for a stroll. Hmm… blackmail… Also an additive for the scrapbook I've been putting together on the side, of all the memorable moments of my life as a transformer, and I'll keep adding to it, until I'm old enough to actually die as a transformer, and then I'll pass it off to one of my descendants.

Well, provided that we survive this whole Unicron fiasco…

Chromia nudged my hip softly. "Hey, I saw that look on your face." She scolded me. "Stop worrying about Unibug and Galvatard. We'll be alright, okay?"

I hadn't been aware my face had shifted. "I'm not worrying about that, Chromia. A random thought crossed my mind; that's all." I lied.

"A random thought about what?"

I smirked softly and chuckled dryly. Shit. She was going to call me on that. Think… Think… Think… Bingo! "That I'm getting old."

Chromia gaped at me. "I'm millennia older then you, brattling. Hundreds of millennia in fact. Your not even on the age radar blip!"

I pursed my lips. "True. But I feel older then I am. I've died before; I've met and walked amongst Primus before my time." More then once in that case… "I've grown up, seen the earth rotate, been apart of saving it twice. I'm watching my brother grow up, get a girlfriend, and soon, when he grows a few more feet, probably a spark mate eventually. I didn't think I'd see that happen for several more years. Perhaps a couple hundred years."

"Nightstrider, perhaps you're forgetting that I've died as well." Chromia reminded wryly. "And your father, your mother, Arcee too. Samuel perished as well, as Ironhide almost did." She reached up, stretching to do so, and grasped my hand for a quick squeeze before settling back into normal stride. "I may not remember much of walking with Primus, but I remember enough to feel awed. Awed and old."

I pondered if I could lie a bit and tell her something. Technically it's the truth, but also not the truth. If I didn't delve into my human life, and just fudged a bit with my meeting, then perhaps I could tell a little bit of it… If not, then… well, I guess I wont be able to tell them this. "When I died back in Egypt… that wasn't the first time I had seen Primus."

Chromia frowned at me and pulled to a stop. Her eyebrow plates furrowed, and her optics scanned my face for lies. "What do you mean?"

I stopped and turned to her, my wings fluttering to keep me balanced. I placed a hand gently on the side of my rounded belly as the sparkling kicked. Leo and Velocity walked up next to her and looked at us curiously. "I mean exactly what I said." I said. "I've seen Primus before I died in Egypt."

Leo's jaw dropped. "Does anyone else know this, Sis?"

I shook my head, my antenna's fluttering. "No one. Not Papa, not Mama, not Sunstreaker, nor Sideswipe."

Velocity gawked. "How do you avoid them finding out? I thought that when you spark bonded, all your memories were shared?"

Shifting slightly, I nodded. "Usually yeah." I agreed. "But this is something that happened before most of my memories on earth. In fact, before this, I have no memories what so ever. It happened when I was just a sparkling, smaller then even you were, Leo. Not long before I crashed on earth, I had apparently been in my space pod for a long time. Maybe not to one of us now, but for a little sparkling it was long, too long." My processor spun, working out a lying truth. "I died, shortly before passing the planet Saturn." I didn't really know when my sparkling body died and my soul moved into here, so it was just a rough estimate. "My spark passed into the void, and I was heading towards the light of the matrix; to go join my femme creator."

Chromia blinked and interrupted me. "You died? Before you even got here?"

I nodded. "Yeah. I did. But, a big glowing ball stopped me; asked me if I was ready to go to matrix yet. I was just a tiny tyke back then, mind you, so I didn't really understand what that was. So I said no. Then he took me back to the place where he keeps all souls in before they pass over. He spoke with me, but I don't remember the words. I was too young of mind, then, to really comprehend them. But I was with him for a while before he sent me back. I remember waking up while entering the earth's atmosphere. It was hot, uncomfortable, but I… had a clearer understanding of things then when I did before I died."

Velocity blinked. "So… in a way, you could say you've been touched by Primus! Can you, like, feel him in your mind?" She glanced at me in awe.

"No." I frowned at her. I couldn't feel him. Why would she even think thast? "Stop that Velocity. I'm no different then the rest of you; only I've died and been returned by a sheer stroke of luck."

"It could explain why you grew so fast, so painfully." Chromia mused. Oh how right she was. "Hmm… Well, you know I'm going to have to report this to your father, right?"

I shook my helm. "I would rather you didn't. I don't want this put out for everyone to know."

Leo looked to Chromia. "Chromia, I remember when you used to baby-sit me, you once told me the tale of how we Cybertronians came to be. Is there any chance, any chance what to ever, that you remember what you told me about Primus? Didn't you say he had a brother?"

She nodded. "Yes. Unicron, the Unmaker, bringer of death, destruction, doom, and overall gloom, forbidden from devouring only one planet; Cybertron, home of the Cybertronians. Why do you ask, Leo?"

"Is it possible that we could make a plea to Primus, to come down and ward his Brother off? This is our home now; Cybertron is long dead, you said. We belong here now, Chromia. Cant Primus make the same demand he had so long ago? Can he not forbid his brother from taking earth from us?" Leo asked.

Chromia frowned. "I don't know, Leo. I don't know. But we can ask Prime; he has the closest connection to Primus out of any of us." She eyed me slightly. "I'll also discuss with him this information you have imparted with me."

I rubbed my arm softly, before jerking my head up as something crash-landed overhead. Velocity stepped in front of Leo, hunching her shoulders protectively in front of Borealis to keep him safe from debris. Leo slipped his arm over her shoulder and set his head on hers, turning his face away to ward off flying organic material. Chromia stepped in front of me as I knelt slightly to protect my stomach, wrapping her arms around my belly to aid in the protection. When the debris died down from its flying fit, I stood myself upright again and moved forwards cautiously, slipping from Chromia's grasp. I followed a rut in the ground, as I could quite clearly see a thick trail of energon, and my inner medic knowledge figured it was an injured bot. What I came upon, though, I was not expecting, and neither was Chromia, when she came crashing after me, weapons online and primed to fire.

Starscream was knelt over a femme, much smaller then himself, and he was shakily trying to repair her with one arm. The femme's chest was torn and bleeding, and my memory banks recognized her as Whiplash, the one I had seen back in Chicago. Starscream was chattering at her softly, trying to wake her up I'm guessing. His energon was leaking profusely out of his missing arm, and there was a gaping hole in the armor of his stomach. His cockpit was torn off as well; completely missing, leaving a big bloody hole in the middle of him. His wings had claw marks, and I could sympathize with pain from torn wings.

Whiplash, though, besides the hole in her chassis, had the most worrying injuries, though I could see her optics online. It wasn't the fact that the lower part of her left leg, from the knee down, was missing, or the fact she had holes punctured through both of her doorwings, claw marks down her things and hips, or the fact she was bleeding out rather quickly. No… It was the fact she had all those injuries, but also her belly had a distinct bulge, one that of a carrying femme.

Starscream, the traitorous wretch, looked up, spotted me, and then spoke in the most pitiful garbled noise I had hears in a long while. "Please!" he begged, his voice screechy, like nails on a chalkboard, with fear, worry. It was apparent his seeker protocols were active, as he didn't seem… so crazy and insane as I had seen him before. "Please, don't hurt us! We mean no harm! Whiplash, she, she need help. Please! Help her! I don't want to lose her or our sparkling! _Please!_"

I moved forwards, Chromia angling to grab my arm. "Stop!" she hissed. "Those are Decepticons!"

I scowled, yanking my arm from her grip. "No. That's a worried father and a dying mother. Call Ratchet and First Aid. Get them out here stat; keep Leo and Velocity away. I'm going to get her stabilized."

"Nightstrider-"

"No!" I barked. "You would let an innocent sparkling die? Are you that spark less, Chromia? To kill a sparkling just because it's creators are Decepticon aligned?"

Chromia threw up her fists angrily. "Fine! When it turns out to be a hoax and he stabs you in the leg, I'll be close enough to blow his head off!"

I moved away from her, hurrying as fast as my pregnant self could, and settled down next to Whiplash. "Get them, Chromia, now! Tell them to bring energon, she's going to need a transfusion."

"What can I do?" Starscream asked, his one and going out to grab my arm gently. "Tell me what I can do to help, please. I need to do something. She's dying… I can feel it…"

I pulled my arm from his grasp. "Move back. I need room." He keened like he was in pain, being beaten by Megatron perhaps… I pulled out my laser scalpel and clamps before I set to work, staining my hands with her energon as I worked to save her. Snagging a transfer like from my subspace, I managed to hook it up to Starscream, so he could feed her energon, as his body was roughly twice her size.

I worked, even as I heard Ratchet, First Aid, other Autobots, and the humans come hurrying towards us. I was damned set on saving the mother and her sparkling… Maybe, though, that's just the mothering instincts in me.


	96. Untill The Day We Sear The Skies

(_**Sorry for the late update folks, I've been busy dealing with stuff that would make most folks vomit. One of our cows had a calf, and she wasn't old enough to have one, so the calf was born dead. We had to put the cow down, and I, unfortunately, stumbled upon, quite literally as I fell into the middle of it, the half eaten calf that the buzzards had picked at.**_

_**Not a good couple of days… as is probably contributing to the length of this chapter.**_

_**Enjoy even though its short~**_)

"Calm down, Whiplash." I ordered. My hands were splayed upon her repaired chassis, holding her down as Ratchet set to welding shut the claw marks in her thighs. The missing part of her leg had been staunched, so it wasn't bleeding anymore. All that was left was the gashes in her thighs. Even her doorwings had been repaired. Whiplash, though, was thrashing and flailing to get away from Ratchet. Starscream was gently holding down her wrists, having moved with us to the med bay, though he could only do so much with one missing arm. First Aid was fetching MoonRacer, as the femme had more knowledge of Seeker physiques then First Aid did. Chromia had went to inform my father of… well… everything, much to my chagrin. Leo and Velocity had gone to find my mother to return little Bo, and to inform my mates of what I was doing in the med bay.

She was snarling and clicking in a panic, trying to get away, though her optics seemed more unfocused then they had been when I was. I couldn't understand what she was saying, as I do not speak Cybertronian. I clicked softly to her as she then hissed out her words in English. "Let me go! Let me go now! No more pain!"

"Easy, Whiplash." I said, trying to relax my tone like I had heard Moonracer do for Bo, when she had to update one of his virus walls. "We're not hurting you, your mate, or your sparkling."

She keened in distress, and Starscream mirrored her slightly. "Please…" Whiplash begged. "Please, lord Galvatron… No more… No more… I can't take it… Please… my sparkling…" She gave up fighting and fell limp, just keening desperately in her daze.

I flicked my optics over to Starscream, removing my hands from her chassis to feel about for the sparkling in her belly. The sparkling was big, but I didn't really know how long she had been carrying for. "Galvatron did this?"

Starscream keened softly. "Yes. He was angry, I don't know about what though. He went after my Whiplash, mine! I intercepted, offering to take the beating to spare my mate and sparkling." He let off a distressed sound, backing up and pressing his single hand to his face, his arm now free of the energon feed line. "He beat me like he normally would, leaving me temporarily incapacitated… Then he turned on her…" he moved to the wall, banging his injured wings into it as he slid down into a sitting position. His energon dripped down from his stomach and cockpit area due to the new movement for the area. He keened in distress. "I… I was useless!" he growled angrily. "I couldn't get up fast enough! It was seconds, mere seconds! It only took him merely a few damned seconds to do that damage to her!"

I frowned softly as the plates beneath my hands contracted softly for a brief second, the sparkling within shifting uneasily. "Well, your sparkling seems fine." I informed him. "As for your wounds, Starscream, you said they were normally given? This is normal for you?"

"No." he moaned. "No its not… I received these for fighting back, to save my mate, my Whiplash. I fled with her, from Uranus. Galvatron followed, tearing my wings. He… He's here on Earth, somewhere in the middle of this landmass. He wants something, someone, his heir he had howled... And… And the doom-bringer! Unicron. He's within this galaxy. He's coming, fast. He'll be here within the next two earthling months." He babbled.

Well shit. That's…. well, I'd say we're fucked, if what he's babbling is true. If Galvatron is here… then that means he's probably looking for our base! Shit! Activating my comm. link system, I sent the information to my father, and to Prowl. Prowl could come up with the best plan of action… at least I hope. Wait… Two months? That's… close to when I'm due, and when Jazz will be giving birth. Double shit…

I frowned, whispering softly to Ratchet. "How sane does he sound to you?"

Ratchet tsked softly next to me. "This is the sanest he's sounded in millions of vorns, but he's a seeker. Seekers are known for being able to flip moods in a split second." He finished welding a piece of metal onto Whiplash's thigh, having repaired the broken lines and wires inside. "So, perhaps he's crazy, perhaps not."

"I see." I said. I pursed my lip plates and then frowned, my hands picking up on the stomach plates contracting lightly. "How far along do you think she is?"

"I can't tell. Seeker young are large as it is. She's a smaller femme. She could be anywhere from the same gestational time as you are, or she could be to term." He pursed his lip plates softly. "Why do you ask?"

"Her stomach is contracting." He didn't say a thing to my statement, only hummed softly. I looked at Starscream. "How far along is she?"

"Seven earth months." He thrummed. Starscream rubbed his faceplates, not really seeming to care he was bleeding out slowly. "Seekers gestate longer then you ground-pounders."

I frowned at him. "If I were any other bot, and you weren't injured, I'd take offense to that, and I would hurt your further." I sighed, turning back to Whiplash as Ratchet finished welding up her other leg. Gently I checked the position of the sparkling, and from what I could feel, it was in position for birthing. "I'm not going to be able to bend down easily to do this, Ratchet." I said.

Ratchet nodded. "Then I'll do it for you."

"No." Starscream grunted.

I looked at him. "What?"

Starscream stood, towering above us both, intimidating even when missing a limb, a total turn from the panicked mech from just a few minutes ago. "No mech is going to see my femme un-covered, medic or not." His red optics glittered threateningly. "No. I've tolerated his touch on her only to heal her. Only a femme will touch her further. Only a femme who I know won't hurt her." His torn and damaged wings twitched and he eyed me.

I rested a hand softly on my stomach, my sparkling shifting into awareness. "If you want, Moonracer can do it." I said. "I can't bend down that easily, and we don't have any stools in here that are the right height for me to sit on and help her deliver comfortably."

Starscream locked deep and scary red eyes on me, his jagged toothed mouth grinding. His wings rose in a fierce fatherly protectiveness. Well… Okay, there was probably some aggression there too, but I don't think it was directed at me. Or at least I hope not. "You." He said. "Or another carrying femme. Only carrying. Carriers have the instincts required for my protocols to be happy, after what we've dealt with. Anyone else… I will kill them."

I frowned softly and sighed. "Alright. Ratchet? Can you find me some sort of stool for me to sit on? Hopefully one that's tall enough to reach the berth; or give me a few blocks of metal to set on the stool. Perhaps you could also bring Whiplash into full awareness?" I started to rummage through my subspace for what I would need; blankets, towels, cleaning supplies.

…

Some two hours later, I found myself really wishing I wasn't the only carrying femme, mostly due to the fact that Whiplash was incredibly volatile to anyone in the room, save myself due to the nice swell of my stomach. Much to Starscream's aggravation, we had to chain down her hands to the berth. She kept trying to go for her whips hidden in her thigh plating. She had already almost hit Ratchet with one.

Starscream was currently having another arm built and his body repaired by the three medics, and he was sitting practically right next to us, though his legs were at the end of Whiplash's bed. He had pretty much barricaded the door after First Aid and Moonracer had got here, and wasn't letting anyone through; he even managed to bombard my twins outside… But Ratchet helped too, saying they need not be in here with a birthing femme. I had blocked the bond to my family some time ago; sealed myself off from everyone, my mates included. Apparently Chromia had told my father everything, and I do mean everything, while the twins were there discussing something that had to do with sparkling proofing area's of the base, like the weapons locks. None of them took it well, that I had kept something from them.

I dug myself into shit when I told Chromia, Leo, and Velocity the half lie, half-truth. I shouldn't have said anything. I should have just kept walking, and enjoyed my time with them and my break from my sparkling kicking.

Which brings me back to Whiplash. I'm settled on Starscream's knee, fucking awkward I know, as we couldn't set up a stable stool that gave me enough room to deal with Whiplash. "Alright, Whiplash. You're sparkling has decided to start coming down now. Push now, please."

She snarled at me, tightening her hold over Starscream's good hand. "Don't tell me what I know I need to do!"

I drew my eyebrow plates together and sighed. "Come on, Whiplash, enough with the lip. If you put the force behind your words into the force behind your push, then this will all be over _much_ sooner for us both." Gently I leaned forwards and set out the towels to catch the nasty fluids. I extended my little hands from my fingertips up inside her port to wrap around the sparklings head and help guide the little thing down without it snagging. Its helm armor was smooth, very sleek, but it also had two slightly sharp spikes, like little horns.

Whiplash simply snarled at me angrily and pushed. The sparkling's head surged forwards easily. More easily then any other sparkling I had delivered thus far. Starscream clicked softly. "Seekers are easy to birth. They come out quickly, as there are usually multiple if both parents in the relationship are seeker built." He said.

I shifted on my seat, his knee jagged and rather uncomfortable to sit on. "I see." Shifting my hold on the sparkling, I clicked softly. "Alright, Whiplash. Give me three short pushes in the time of three seconds." She rumbled softly in response. "Go."

On the first push, the sparkling moved softly with the contraction, my hands helping guide the little buggart out. On the second push, it was much the same. The third push brought its helm into sight, and enticed a pained hiss from Whiplash as the large helm of it breached the edge of her port. The helm was a dark color, a mottle of blacks and gray colors.

She didn't stop there. Whiplash kept pushing, her hands coming forwards to clutch at her knees- er, knee and stump- and her vents working as she strained to expel her sparkling. Her pushing moved the sparkling forwards all the way to mid shoulders, and gave me a perfect view of a soft and adorable face, along with little triangular wings, much like Starscream's wings, though less Dorito shaped. It was… pretty cute for a slimy, energon, and goop covered little Decepticon baby. Light red optics lit up, and the sparkling let off a soft noise. I smiled at it and pulled a towel forwards, closing my hands around the sparkling softly as Whiplash fell back. She vented harshly.

"Good, Whiplash." I said. "Vary good. Your sparkling is beautiful. It's got your optics."

Whiplash didn't say anything, only panted softly. Then, she sat herself up again and steeled me with a look. "I'm ready to push again."

I arched an eyebrow plate. "Without a contraction?"

She huffed. "Contraction or not, I want this thing out of me, so I can hold it and cuddle it."

Starscream snorted above me. "I still say it's a femme."

"Mech." She shot back snappily, bracing her hands on her knee and stump. "Mothers always know."

I pursed my lips and sighed. "Alright, alright, don't argue now. You'll get to see here in a moment. Now, give me one lone, hard push." Without another word, she bore down and howled in pain as she worked to expel her sparkling. I helped as much as I could, giving added pressure to help pull it along. When the sparkling was half way out, Whiplash's contraction rolled around, making her voice cry out, and then drop into a high pitched keen as she contracted harshly.

The sparkling started to fuss and whine right about the time it fell into the towel on my arms. I drew back, cradling it atop my belly on my chassis. I cooed at it, a little mech by the little rod hanging limply between his legs, and removed another cloth from my subspace to wipe him off with. As soon as he was clean, happily gurgling now that he didn't have all that nasty goop all over him, I stood from Starscream's knee and walked around to Whiplash, settling him gently in her arms. "You have a little mech."

She smiled, and Starscream moved the doctors away from him so he could move closer to his mate. He reached out one bedraggled hand and caressed his sparklings hand and cheek. "You were right." He rasped softly. "A gorgeous little mech. What… do we name him?"

"StarWhip." She answered truthfully. "Our little Starwhip…" She smiled softly, leaning to the side to rest on her mate.

I sighed, moving away and walking over to Ratchet. For once, I had managed to avoid getting much on me as a midwife. I tsked softly and motioned with my helm for him to follow me over to the sink so I could wash and speak with him. He followed, and as I set to rinsing off my hands, I addressed him. "What do we do now? Do we cast them out?"

"We'll leave that up to Prime and Prowl." Ratchet responded. He shifted, leaning on the wall. "You know, your father is going to need to talk with you… about what you have kept from us."

I let out a frustrated growl, wishing I could hit something that wouldn't break. "It was not my secret to give." I snapped.

"Yes, it was." He spoke. "Its your life to live, even if it was given to you twice over."

I angled my head and glared up at him. "You don't seem to understand, do you? I-" my voice locked up, forewarning that I was going to try and say something I shouldn't, and something I wasn't aloud to say.

"'I' what, Nightstrider?" He arched an eyebrow. "You have something else you haven't told us?"

My antennas went ridged, and I growled softly. "I cant fucking say, alright?" My hands went up and slammed down on the sink. "I can't say! There's a price to pay for dying twice! My price is one that makes it so I can't talk truthfully about things I'm not supposed to say, all right? Is that what you want me to say? I wasn't even supposed to tell Chromia what I told her!"

Ratchet furrowed his eyebrow plates. "You mean what you told Chromia wasn't the truth."

"It was a truthful as I could make it with a lie." I said. My sparkling kicked and thrashed inside me, reacting to my aggravation and stress. Pressing my damp hands to my belly, I grimaced and cooed softly to it, my door wings flicking upright.

Ratchet took my elbow and moved me to another room, sitting me on one of the beds. "Relax. The stress isn't good for the sparkling. You could go into premature sparkling birthing."

I grimaced. "I'm not that stressed, Ratchet, but all the pressing from my familial bonds is getting to me now, and you grilling me hasn't made this any better." I rolled onto my side and sighed softly. "I wish I hadn't said anything… it just muddles things up." I curled my arms over my belly softly.

"What has been spoken cannot be unspoken…" He sighed. "I'll see what I can do. Do you want to stay here for the night?"

I closed my optics with a soft click. "Is it so bad that I want to say yes and no at the same time?"

Ratchet chuckled wryly. "Just stay here for the night. I did tell you, once so long ago, that the med bay will always be open to you should you have need of it." He moved to the door. "I'll bring by some energon for you. The usual? Sour?"

I nodded. "Yeah… Is my family spamming your comm. lines?"

He nodded. "Yeah. But I'll ward them off; saying the pestering they're doing is not good for you… Though Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are most… persistent and petulant about coming inside. Sunstreaker just threatened to break down the med bay doors… Sideswipe is off on patrol, unfortunately… He'll be back in a few hours."

I sighed softly. "Send them in if you want… Just, can you ask them not to bring it up if you do?"

"No." Ratchet shook his head. "They only come in if you want them."

"I don't know, Ratchet…" I pressed a palm to my head and sighed. "This is a fucking mess. Send 'em in."

"Language, brattling." He scolded. "Your twins will be in momentarily, or rather, one of them will. The other will be along shortly. I just gave them the go ahead, and warned them to drop the subject as you were overstressed." He slipped out. "Get some rest," his voice echoed after him. "I'll swing by later. Hey! Minion! Wrong room! Sunstreaker, Starscream! Down! No fighting!" He barked. I couldn't help but chuckle softly hearing him. "Alright, Sunstreaker, get going. You've harassed the new parents enough! If you don't leave them be, I'll harass you after Nightstrider has her sparkling!"

Moments later, the yellow twin came bustling into the room. I didn't move to look at him, simply choosing to remain in place. Sunstreaker sighed softly and slid behind me, pressing his face into the back of my neck and looping an arm over my waist, loosely holding my hand in his, though I didn't hold his back. He vented softly into my back.

"Why didn't you tell us?" He whispered softly. "I know Ratchet said to drop it, but… why?"

I blinked softly and sighed. "I couldn't, Sunstreaker… I couldn't… I cant… there was a price for coming back from the dead. This was it." I tightened my hand around his as the sparkling wiggled softly and then settled down again.

"Alright." Sunstreaker sighed again. "I've been sharing our words with Sideswipe. Sideswipe insists on having his input, even though he's on his way here and could just say it himself. Well, he says that until the day the heavens sear the earth, we'll work our way through everything that's tossed in our way, and even then, we'll turn around and fight until we sear the skies ourselves."

"Very… poetic." I said.

He chuckled softly against me. "That's my brother; ever the romantic sap." His thumb stroked my hand softly. "We'll work through this, even if you cant tell us everything."


	97. When The Heavens Fall

(_**Hiya folks, thanks for tuning in on the GIBTH radio~ kidding~ Anyways, thanks for all the reviews and stuff, lol. Anyways, enjoy~ sorry about the length~ It is admittedly a tiny bit of a filler in the beginning, because the next chapter is when all the action happens~ or starts to happen~ or rather escalades past anything ya'll have probably read in a long time.**_)

Christmas passed fast, taking a blanket of snow with it. Gifts had been given; baby blankets to us expectant mothers, and various other things to the others, and there had been much joy, despite our seemingly eminent doom. Starscream and Whiplash had been granted refuge, under the grounds they remove their Decepticon logo's and ether take up the Autobot symbol, to appease the human government that had pitched a bitch-fit over Decepticons on base, or to take up neutrality. Little Starwhip, for the most part, had been their saving grace. As an impending father himself, Prowl was sympathetic for once, knowing how he would feel if he was turned out on his ass with a mate and a new sparkling to take care of with the threat of eminent deactivation looming. He voted for them to stay, only for the sake of the sparkling. And thus, they stayed. Whiplash, when she's not flipping out from birthing pains, is actually a fairly easy to get along with femme. Unless, you know, you're Skids and Mudflap. She has a clear distaste for them.

Papa had started to try and talk with the matrix, to get through to the Primes and Primus. So far, no success.

As January rolled around the corner, my family finally got together and cornered me. They interrogated me, Ratchet playing mediator so they didn't 'overstress' me too much. Fat lot of good that did for me; I was still stressed out anyway! Its not every day that you have to pretty much lie a bit to fess up your background. I only gave away what I told Chromia and Ratchet. That was it. That was all I could force myself to disclose. Everything else had my throat jamming up and my vocals fighting to produce words against the unseen force holding them in. It was all one big mess, and I had pretty much been reduced to frustrated tears before Elita finally had enough of their lecturing about hiding things and the grilling. She had stood up in a flurry of small pink armor, and had tugged me gently to my feet before dragging me away to her and papa's room, where she had locked them out. Elita had helped calm me down, and then, with all her motherly glory and anger, stormed out of the room.

She had been heard yelling from halfway across the base, where I had been cornered. Later, Papa apologized with a hug and a sigh, saying he had been sorry that he had said what he had said, and that he never should have interrogated me like he had. The twins had apologized in a different way. They had went and uprooted one of the early blooming cherry blossom tree's in the forest and had given it too me like an apologetic bouquet before giving me good long makeup snuggle.

Also, I was let in on the almost complete designs for a ship, located in a building across the lot from the base, that would take the femmes and sparklings, and as Jazz was carrying a sparkling, he was included too, away from earth, far to a place where we would all be safe for the time being. Far from our mates, far from danger… meaning that we would be alone. The ship would be decked out with an energon creator, a high-powered engine guaranteed to outrun the angriest of speedy seekers, bedrooms, toys for the little ones, blankets, and things from earth to remember the planet by incase it was destroyed. There was even a med bay built, stocked with everything, and there was a spot for the carrying bots to have their sparklings. Ratchet said that we would be leaving by February tenth at the latest, the earlier the better, so that Jazz, as Ratchet predicted he'd be spark birthing sometime around the twentieth, wouldn't be caught in the midst of everything and be in labor, and so that, with my own eminent birthing looming only a month or so from that date would be after I'd settled in on the ship, safe from harm with everyone else.

It didn't feel right to leave, to abandon all hope and flee too the stars. It felt… wrong; like it wasn't supposed to happen. It was one of those odd feelings, like leaving would cause more problems then staying. So… I protested just a little. Okay… a lot. Bah, 'a lot' doesn't even cover what I did.

Safe to say, I pitched a fit worthy of a femme thrice my size. Jazz did too, but not quite as long of one as I did. He gave up after two weeks of insistent fighting with Prowl. He'd had enough arguing. I didn't break anything at all, save a few sinks but I don't really count those as breaking anything. No, I mostly argued and verbally fought, tooth and nail. I was not going to abandon my home, my mates, and my family. I was staying. If my father, Sideswipe, and Sunstreaker had to stay and fight to keep us safe, then by fucking hell, I was _not_ abandoning them, even to save my sparkling and myself. If they died, I would die right along with them, all as one. I was not going to condemn my sparkling to a life without their fathers. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe argued with me about it, vehemently. Many a night had I left in a fit of anger to go stay ether in the rec-room, or in the med-bay, depending on if I wanted to deal with Ratchet checking in on me. I had even on one occasion after a particularly bad argument fled to Jazz and Prowl because I was quite literally in tears with frustration and I needed someone who was, or had been, likeminded. Jazz had sat with me as I had cried out my frustrations, and when Sunstreaker and Sideswipe came knocking, Prowl chased them off. Literally.

I had even fought with my father. I give him credit, he only ever raised his voice once, after I had pulled a mood swing and said something particularly hurtful. It had gone something along the lines of 'how could you bare to send your sparkmate and sparklings away, when everyone is under the impression that we're all going to fucking die anyways? How could you be so sparkless to send them away from you, when we should all be together if we die? I was taught never to leave anyone behind. Why are you choosing to leave yourself behind, and cause everyone pain?'. He had lost his ever so patient temper, and I had stormed off, leaving the base to go cool off in the woods. That had been something I never wanted to experience again, and was something I never did experience again.

By the time February rolled closer, looming and looming with the tensions rising and rising until it was here, I had found myself almost spent in my single-handed war against myself leaving the planet Earth. I tapped deep into the ingrained southern stubbornness that my Mama, my human Mama, had ingrained deep into my soul. The only thing that kept me going was the fact I knew I was winning, slowly, ever so slowly, and my stubbornness. Sideswipe was on the verge of breaking. Optimus had refused to even argue with me about it anymore, he would let my mates decide. Sunstreaker was weakening, slowly, very slowly.

But I was winning. By the time the fourth of February rolled around, I had won. I was staying, if only for the fact I threatened to leave the ship the first chance I got and travel via my planetary traveling form back to earth to find them.

As for contacting Primus, Papa got nowhere. It was like he was busy, or something. Not presently watching what was happening, perhaps, he had said to all of us.

The ship was set to take off. It was fully finished now; the fasted building job that the wreckers and Wheeljack had claimed to have ever done. The ship was large, but it was sleek, built for speed. It had its own recycling system, so it created and burned its own fouls, like a living being. Only it had no spark. It only had commands; an Artificial Intelligence if you will. It was programmed to flee to safety with all who were boarding, and to only fight if there was nowhere to go, and it had a signal that could be activated for it to return to earth in case we did actually win. As fir the weapons it had? Well, least to say, it makes our canon carrying weapons specialist look like a Chihuahua next to an Irish Wolfhound. No more words needed.

We, as in all of us Autobots and humans in the program with us, were standing outside, near our hanger. Some of the humans, not any that we were familiar with, were using machinery to bring out the ship, giving us our final moments together before a good portion of us loaded up, probably to never be seen again. Everyone was exchanging sorrowful good-bye's. Jazz was wrapped up by Prowl, and he was silently weeping into his mate's chest plates. Prowl was a stony as ever, though his optics looked misted. Even he seemed to think we were done for. His battle processor couldn't come up with a combat solution.

I was still, hands pressed to my lower back, helping take the pressure off of my belly, standing far from the others simply because I was feeling a bit melancholy. Sunstreaker and I had another argument a few hours ago, one last bit attempt at getting me to go. We were still sour with each other, and it had rubbed off on Sideswipe as well. I didn't want anything to do with them at the moment. I ribbed my belly softly with one hand. I was immense in girth now, the metal stretched tightly. Every move of the sparkling was felt, as if it was so large that it was pressed all the way around my gestational chamber. It made me wonder if perhaps it was indeed immense. My doorwings were angled up, enjoying the cool shade on my black and multi hued flame colored paint. The antennas on my helm were ridged, pointing up like little spikes between my audio receptors.

Elita approached with Leo and Velocity, Bo currently cooing and clicking to Optimus to try and cheer him up. Bo didn't understand, it seems, why everyone was so sad. He didn't like everyone sad, so our bond said. Elita looked at me, and then hugged me softly. "I know why you fought to stay, but I wish… I wish you would come with us."

I squatted as much as I could and hugged her tightly, though not enough to hurt her. "I know, Mom. I know. Take care, alright?"

Elita sighed and nodded, her face pressed in my throat cables. "Nightstrider, promise me you wont go looking for trouble, alright?"

I chuckled softly. "Mom, I think you already know, trouble tends to find me anyways."

She sighed again. "I know, I know." She pulled away, touching my hand softly. "I… I can't say anymore. I just cant…"

Nodding softly, I nudged her away. "Go be with Papa, alright? We'll be fine. We're kick ass fighters, and good always wins in the end."She pressed a hand to her face and walked towards Optimus. Leo and Velocity stepped up to take her place, though Velocity only hugged me briefly before darting off with tears in her optics to go slam a hug into her father.

I wrapped my arms around Leo, still bent awkwardly down. "Sis," he sniffed. "Why did you have to fight to stay? Why couldn't you just come with us? I don't want to lose you… I can't lose you, Sissy." His armor shuddered. "I hate that I can't help but break down. All the other mechs hold it together, and yet I _can't_. I tried to be like Papa, to be strong, to not cry… but when it comes to loosing my Sister, my idol for growing up, my family… I just _can't_." he sniffed against me. "You're my sister, my confidant when I need advice. What am I going to do without you?

"It's alright, Leo." I soothed softly. I ran a hand over his helm softly, trailing it to hold tightly to his shoulders and back plating. "I'm not going anywhere."

"Yes you are." He cried softly against me. "You, Papa, and everyone on earth are going to die!"

"Leo," I said softly. "If we do die, which I'm hoping to Primus we come up with some plan so we don't, then you have to remember us, alright? Be strong, for you, for Velocity, Jazz, Mom, Chromia, everyone. Alright? Be strong. Remember what I told you when you lost your arm?"

Leo nodded. "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. That's a human phrase though."

My door wings twitched slightly. "Listen, its as good a statement as any. If we do die, which I'm certain we wont, then your going to have to pull strong. As the eldest sparkling of Papa, that makes you fall in line to lead. You have the spark for it, Leo, your just like Papa. I'm not pressuring you, but be strong, all right kiddo? And believe in us; in the fact we can do it." Doing all this cheering up is so… hard to do when it's a bit eminent that we might die.

"Alright. Just… try not to die, all right Sis? I don't want to lose you. I believe in you, in everyone. You can do it."

I nodded and patted his shoulder softly. "That's right." He went to pull away, but I held him still to press a soft kiss to the top of his helm. "Remember Leo, its okay to show emotion. Emotion is what makes us strong, love, passion, guilt, joy, sorrow, anger, frustration; all of those are apart of the puzzles that make up our souls. Denying those, is denying your true self." I let him go. "Go give Papa a hug, Squirt. He needs it more then I do right now. And as a hint, I've seen Papa cry."

He looked up at me. "When? I've never seen Papa cry."

My vocals froze when I tried to speak. "When I died." Was on the edge of my tongue, but it wouldn't roll off. Sighing, I shook my helm softly. "Egypt." I said cryptically. "Ask Papa if you want to know."

I stood, stretching my back softly. Leo looked at me in contemplation, his optics still moise with energon tears. "Egypt. Wait… Didn't you die in Egypt? Right after Papa was brought back to life?" he blinked in confusion at me. Then his eyes cleared, and he seemed to understand. I gave a wry smile. He understood my hidden meaning. "You… You watched from a sort of limbo, didn't you? You watched over everyone from next to Primus, didn't you?"

I gave a very dry and humorless chuckle. "I cant answer that, Squirt, you-"

There was a hissing sound, a dry whistle perhaps, like someone firing a missile. And then the hanger where the ship was still half in exploded in a ball of flame, incinerating the ship in a ball of exploding metal as the raw energon ignited in a big explosion that knocked us all for a loop. The explosion killed the humans in and around the area of the ship; another loss of life. There was another whistling sound, and then rapid fire, the rest of whatever was fairly undamaged of the hanger exploded in a rapid succession.

I had wrapped my arms around Leo, turning my face and body away to block Leo and my front half from any debris. I wasn't hit hard with anything, and neither was Leo. When the dist cleared, a very maniacal laughter started ringing out amongst the coughs and weapons onlining. I turned myself sideways, tucking Leo against my shielded left side, my shoulder blasters and right hip blaster onlining along with other's weapons. My optics scanned the dust, smoke, and flames as they died down slightly. Then my jaw dropped, and fear clenched my spark.

Towering a little over twice my Fathers height stood a robot I had never seen. He was jagged and thick, built for war. In fact, I would say it looked like perhaps the Cybertronian before us was the definition of war. His arms were larger around then my stomach girth, his optics a crazy purplish red color. He seemed to have legs the size of small redwood trees, the type that some people can build car tunnels through. Then, I began to recognize things. His helm, his jagged teeth, his stance, it all spoke words to me. Then he spoke. "I have come," Galvatron rumbled. "For my niece."

Leo rumbled behind me and barked before anyone else could speak. "I wont let you take my sister, you ugly fuckface!" He growled, his little, not fully primed cannons coming online. "I'll hurt you if you try!"

I looked sharply at him and shifted to tuck him behind me as much as I could. Galvatron's gaze looked towards Leo, who was struggling to get out from behind me, to defend me. "You?" he seemed appalled. "Scrap, I could chew you up and spit you out before you could even make a dent in my armor."

"You will not harm my son." Optimus rumbled from where he stood, handing off Bo to Elita. "Galvatron." He growled. "So you have found us."

"Indeed I have, Prime," Galvatron's cannons, larger then the lower half of my body, onlined. "If I weren't under the orders of my master to only fetch my heir, I would destroy you here and now. But, alas, my master is passé. He wants to have the indulgence of killing you himself." His cannons powered down, and his jets, large, powerful looking things on his back, ignited, heating up to launch. "So, I'll just take her and be done with it."

For once in my life, I prayed. As a human I had never been religious, choosing to spend my time actually doing something productive to help my mother, instead of praying, like all her church friends had, for her to get well. Her death never helped this case ether. But, I prayed. "Primus, Primus, please hear me, please help us." I clutched my little brother tightly, as his bravado ended, and I felt his fear take over, leaving him clinging to me. "Please, please, please, for fucks sake, Primus!"

Galvatron seemed to hear me and chuckled. "Femme, femme, femme! Praying to someone who doesn't exist wont help you any!" His feet left the ground, and his thrusters burned hotter.

Sunstreaker and Sideswipe bolted for me, aiming to get Leo and me out of the way. I felt it in their sparks; they were panicked, frantically trying to get to us, to save us from this seemingly eminent kidnapping. "No!" Sunstreaker howled.

Galvatron just… kicked a large piece of the air ship. It flew off faster then a bullet, knocking into Sunstreaker, and then into Sideswipe, the force behind the kick so great that it sent them going through the hangers behind us. Wall through wall they crashed, and then they fell still, and I felt their bond to me fall numb, bleak, not quite empty. Ratchet and Moonracer rushed after them.

I was frozen, like a deer in the headlights of a truck. Or at least my legs were. "No!" I howled. I fired my blasters, feeling the power that they pulled draining on my limited supply, the rest draining to my sparkling, who was lashing and thrashing, reacting to my panic.

Galvatron ignored the blast, simply chuckling. "My masters power, derived from ancient times, said to come from the elusive 'Primus' himself, is far more powerful then any of you can ever hope." The legends say that Primus was brother to Unicron, the more powerful brother. He could have stopped him. He could have stopped his brother from reviving Galvatron, and then Galvatron wouldn't have hurt Sunstreaker or Sideswipe. It's his entire fault. He could have answered papa and helped us stop this… "Now that I think on it," his grin was wicked. "I don't need an heir. I am all powerful!" His cannons exchanged for a big, brutish spiked mace ball.

"Primus, Damn you!" I howled. "This is your brothers monster! We have no relation to this! Get your fucking ass down here and deal with your little family spat!" Leo trembled against me. "It's already almost cost me my mates!" I cried angrily, half looking up, half watching Galvatron as he started to blast towards Leo and I. My legs started to work again, and I stumbled back with Leo, backpedaling to get us away. "What more do you want?" I cried softly. No answer.

I winced and curled back over Leo, determined to give him as much padding as I could. My arm went down to protect my belly. I watched Galvatron's face as it neared, his arm rising to hit us as I moved backwards as fast as I could waddle us both.

"**That is enough!**" A familiar voice boomed, one I had not heard in a long time.

Then this big ass hand seemed to swing down out of nowhere, literally appearing from above me along with a foot and a leg. The hand made contact with Galvatron, backhanding him out of sight with a mighty crunch. I straightened to hear many gasps, and I looked up, up, up to see the grandfatherly figure from my youngling years. His hand dropped down to nudge Leo away, and he scooped me up.

Soon, I was face to face with someone I had not seen in a long time. "**You have a lot to explain, little one.**" Primus glared at me, his blue optics squinted. "**Like why you decided to work out a way around your word bindings.**"


	98. Price To Pay

(_**My apologies for the cliffie, though I couldn't resist~ the real action starts next chapter, this one is just a short filler that will leave you craving the violence in the next chapter. Most,y it doesn't start this chapter because I'm too busy this weekend to write up a possibly ten thousand word chapter. I have a summer job! I get to help work events and stuff :D I worked today, and I work tomorrow, so, thus, I have no time to write a big chapter. Anyways, thanks for your time, sorry for the BS below, and I hope you look forwards to the enxt chapter, the epic showdown if the century!**_

_**Question of the day****: Have any of you ever read a fanfiction fic , not a one-shot, where Primus fights Unicron? If so, leave the answer in a review!**)_

"For your information," I clung to his finger tightly and glared at him. "I didn't decide. It just happened."

"**Oh yeah.**" He scoffed, sounding more like an irate teenager then the god that Primus actually was. "**'It just happened'. That's what most humans say when the male knocks up the female before wedlock. Your little lie doesn't work with me.**"

"Fuck off! It's not a lie!" I growled. This was not about me, not right now. There were more pressing matters at hand, such as the impending end of our planet. "Now, I have a question for you; where the _hell_ have you been? On what, a fucking potty break?"

Primus' fingers curled around me, holding tightly, not so much so that it would hurt my sparkling, but tight enough to be uncomfortable. "**For your information, yes, I was emptying my waste tank, and then I had to catch up on your life. Last time I watched a currently up to date part of your life, was shortly after you almost lost your mind. But this is beside the point. You… You…**" He let out a growl. "**You were not supposed to speak out about your past, and the pain of your changes were an advanced debt to me in case you died again. That was the unsaid price for your revival, Nightstrider. But no; it seems, even when you are unconscious for thirteen or so months in the human time, you dare defy me; dare to rebel against me.**"

I frowned. "When the hell did I do that?"

"**Your dreams,**" Primus hissed, a cloud of steam spurting forth from one of his beard-metals. "**Sharing a body meant sharing memories, dreams, even if it was only fragmented for the parasite hosting itself in your comatose corpse.**"

Scowling, I shouted up at him. "Ironhide wasn't a parasite! If he remembered anything, then he would have confronted me about them!"

For once, Primus said nothing, just stared down at me. "**Perhaps,**" he finally rumbled. "**Perhaps your Ironhide did not discern how to broach the subject with you.**"

I frowned. "Can you shrink yourself down so we can all talk like civilized folk? I want to ask Ironhide if he remembers anything." I eyed the height as which we were at, and then felt worry tinge my spark when I found my mates unmoving with Ratchet hovering over them. "Why… can't I feel my mates? At all?"

"**I have numbed you for the purpose of speaking with you**." He answered. "**I don't like reprimanding distraught femmes. It makes me feel guilty. So I numbed you, so you could talk with me. Worry not for your mates. They are stable in this world, for the time being anyways**." He sighed, his hot breath blowing over me like a wave. "**Yes, I could shrink down. I understand that, as you are carrying the sparkling that you are, you must feel rather uncomfortable up here**."

"Very." I answered stiffly.

Without another word, Primus began to shrink. As he was shrinking, he backhanded Galvatron again as the crazed and demented mech came flying back at full blast. "**Blasted pest. Perhaps it will take him longer to fly back from the Strait of Magellan then from California.**" When Primus was down to a size where I could actually see the bots as bots instead of little ants, I blinked at what I saw. Everyone, who wasn't injured or taking care of the wounded, had his or her weapons primed and aimed at Primus. Even my darling little brother Bo had his toy gun pointed at Primus, though he was probably just mimicking his elder influences. Dryly, Primus commented on the whole situation as he shifted me in his hands, holding me similar to a doll. "**Protective of you, aren't they.**"

"Very." I whispered. Clearing my throat softly, I swallowed. Papa's optics locked on me.

"Nightstrider," Optimus called, his cannons buzzing loudly. "Are you alright?"

"I'm fine Papa." I answered. "Um… Everyone? I'd like to introduce you to Primus I guess. Everyone, Primus. Primus, everyone. Now, can you put the guns away? You're making me nervous."

The weapons pointed away, but did not offline. "Nightstrider, you say this is Primus?" Papa asked slowly. "Are you quite sure?"

"Yeah." I answered. "Its Primus alright. I know him quite well. Anyways, Ironhide?"

The weapons specialist shifted, his cannons humming. "Brattling, if this is not really important, could you ask it later, after… Primus… lets you down?"

"No." I said. "When you're spark was in my spark casing, and I was in stasis, do you remember any odd dreams or things you may have witnessed through me?"

"Yes." He answered hesitantly. "How did you know?"

I looked up at Primus. He gazed stonily down at Ironhide. "**She defied me, and you got to see some of her life, some bits that I have not allowed her to speak of. Something that even if a good lie crafter she may be; she would not be able to make one without crafting the whole truth with it.**" He thrummed quizzically. "**But I am over it now. Part of the past. It angers me still, though, Nightstrider, and we will have words of it later."**

"Ironhide?" I asked. "What did you see?"

He rumbled softly. "I saw many things. I saw the birth of a human, a life filled with loss, joy, love, and sacrifice. I saw that human's death, and the offer of a god. After that… not much. Very little, really. A few flickers, but not anything worth telling."

"I see." I said softly.

"**Nightstrider, you can speak to all of them about this later. Perhaps, before I leave this world to return to my own, I will show them you're while life, from start, until now. But, we can discuss the terms of that later, after you ask me what I know you wish to ask.**"

I blinked up at him. "Can you set me down?"

"**Yes.**"

"Uh… will you set me down please?"

"**No. Ask your question.**"

I grunted. "Fine. Primus? Can you please help us save earth?"

"**Yes.**" Primus answered, blinking at me. "**I can. But will I? Well, that depends. It would be a favor. What would I be willing to take as a cost?**"

I shook my helm. "No. You're not sticking a cost on us; not when this is your fucking brother we're dealing with. This is a mess that you created; you allowed him to devour planets. Primus, you are stuck helping us, because this isn't our mess to handle. Unless you want all of your creations, all Cybertronians, to die, then you had best stand up and put a stop to your brother."

"**Oh, but you seem to misunderstand. This is my brother indeed, but he is also family. Could you kill your own brother to protect your creations? Could you destroy the only thing that anchors you to where you belong? You don't get it, do you? If I am the creator of heaven, then he is the purgatory of hell.**" He chuckled. "**One cannot exist without the other, unless someone else were to end him. What you ask, is asking me to kill my other half. I will not do so without a price; a heavy price. Say… millennia or so off of your lifespan? Perhaps your pass into the matrix when you offline? Or… the very mechanism that makes you transform?**" He paused. "**No. If I were to cut your lifespan, then it would be until the time the earth comes to an end, and you are forced to leave. Yes, yes. That would suffice for killing my brother.**"

"No." I said. "No. I never said you had to kill him, did I?" I didn't… no, thinking back on my words, I had not. "No. You can warp dimensions, right? Go to different dimensions, perhaps one with no life, and leave him there, where he can do no harm?"

Primus thrummed softly. "**Yes, I could. But he will not go willingly, and will take much of my power to fight him into a broken status. For that, I would require a payment as well. Perhaps the life of one of your mates? I will even let you choose.**"

"NO!" I shouted, slamming my fist down on his hand, digging in my claws. "If you're going to do anything for payment, you'll take it from me, not from my mates, not from my family, and not from any future family members ether!" I snarled. "Don't you fuckign dare try it!"

Pursing his lips at me, Primus nodded. A wave of power washed over us, forcing me flat against his hand, and forcing all of the bots below us on the ground to kneel. "**Very well! I have decided my price! For my help, I have decided, that as both punishment for breaking my vice of silence, you will be forced to outlive all that you care about! You will survive time and time again, pain, punishment, dismemberment, watching your friends and family be torn apart. You will watch the fall of earth, the rise of your race, and the continuation of the humans. You will watch your sparklings grow, have sparklings of their own, and their own have sparklings, and so on, until they all die off of old age. Then, once the last of your friends who have known you have died off, then you perish, leaving behind no memory of your remaining behind!**" He set me down, and I stumbled to my knees, one hand on my belly as the sparkling lashed franticly, a pressure building in my belly from the pressing power. "**So it has been decreed, and so forth, it shall stay, lest you find a way to break this too.**"

Then, with the force of a tidal wave receding, the power swept back beneath its covering of the thinly armored frame of Primus, when knelt down and gently touched between my door wings. "**I am sorry, child, for this. But it is my way, the unspoken ways of the gods. It's a kind of set of rules we have to follow. But, anon, there is a way to make it unso. You will have to find it, and incite my rage hence forth once more.**"

"Easy enough," I grunted, resting on my knees and one of my hands, as my other held my belly protectively. "Especialy with my Karma."

"**Ah, Karma.**" Primus chuckled. "**A very spiteful bitch indeed. I had the displeasure of meeting her once.**"

I looked up to Primus slightly as he drew his hand back. "Can… can you heal my twins?"

"**For a price.**" He said.

"Of course."

"**Oh, this one wont be bad at all, little one.**" He spoke. Then he looked at the others, who were still all pinned, even the humans, by Primus's power. "**Simply, you will all, even the present humans, watch our fight, my brother's and I, from a dimension where you will remain until I beat him. Or, indefinably, if he beats me.**"

I blinked and frowned as my stomach let off a twinge softly, tightly. "So you man we could be stuck in an alternate dimension like thing indefinably."

"**Until I regain my energy and fetch you later, yes. Worry not, none of you will age beyond what you are now.**"

Jazz, from where ever he was kneeled, chimed cheerfully. "Well, as depressing as an eternity in labor sounds, it sounds a lot better then a painful death by giant mouth crunching us all up. I'm all for it."

"Go for it." I said. Moonracer could attend to Jazz. "Where would we be stuck at though? A giant black expanse of space?"

"**Goodness no, I'm not that cruel. Both you and Jazz would be allowed to have your sparklings there, just you would be stuck with sparklings until I take you out again. As for where you'll be kept, well, you'll see.**"

I grunted softly, reaching across the slowly un-numbing bonds for my twins, who were groggy. "It better not be the desert."

"**I have a better sense of taste, brat.**" Primus said. He grew larger then, to the size he had been when he back handed Galvatron. His hand came up again, and he caught something out of the air, something familiar like the evil lords minion. "**Pest.**" He hissed. "**If it were not the fact that I plan on using you later, I would crush you now.**" Primus simply stuffed a hissing, spitting, fucking crazy Galvatron into his subspace. "**And now we go.**"

There was a kind of warping sound, like a spacebridge activating. Then, in a sudden blink of darkness, bleak and horrid, we appeared in a kind of giant room, with many little cubbies with large berths in them, and a little side medical bay. One side of the room was barren, inlaid with a giant wall to ceiling window, showing Primus outside waving in a different type of armor then normal, a more battle suited armor. It looked a lot less like Protoform armor.

"**Be ready,**" he said. "**Enjoy the energon here, the berths, the beds, and the human food for those humans here. We'll be here for a while. I need to go snag my brother and bring him here, to beat him senseless.**"


	99. Bowels Of Hell

(_**Heya my fans! I hope ya don't mind the late chapter, lol~ I wanted it to be epic for ya~ that and I've been having some problems at home. Our Internet might get shut off, because we don't have enough funds to live on, here at home. Making 145 dollars a week can do that too you. As it is, our phones are getting shut off possibly. I'm trying to finish GIBTh before it happens, if we lose our internet.**_

_**enjoy!**_

_**Question! WOULD ANYONE LIKE TO SEE A SEQUEL WITH NIGHTSTRIDER IN TRANSFORMERS PRIME?**_)

"**Before I go, young ones, I must pass you on a warning of old. My brother is crafty; if he decides to do something that will endanger you, I have given you all temporary immortality, so you and your flesh-beings can survive any attacks he makes at you. Bleed you can, be beaten to a messy chunk of scrap metal, yes, but neither you, or any sparklings, adult framed Cybertronians, or the humans may die. I forbade it, and my word is law**"

I pursed my lip component at the glass as Primus disappeared. Whatever cryptic message he just sent to me was lost completely on my audio receptors. Then I turned on my heel and fled through the crowd of bots, shoving those who did not part away from me as I fled to my twins. They were reaching softly through the bonds, trying to reach me, but they seemed incapable of completely focusing on something. Sunstreaker and Sideswipe would reach for me, and then slip back, clawing to try and stay, and then fading out like a dying light before they would try again and again to reach me. The closer I got to them, through the crowd gathered to look out the window, the more I could feel them and the less that both mech tried and strained to reach me, to cling to me. When I shoved past bots larger then I, and stepped over humans smaller then myself, I came to a sight I would rather have not seen. It stopped me dead in my track.

On the floor, side by side with a space between them that would fit me comfortably with a bit of extra space to spare without cramps, Sideswipe and Sunstreaker lay stretched. Half of Sunstreaker's helm was battered, missing his ear finial, and his left optic, the side that was hit, was shattered to the point no glow came from it. Along that same side of his body, his arm was smashed into his chassis, and his leg was mutilated. Sunstreaker's right side was partially smashed from where he had been hit harshly into his brother. He only looked like half of a bot, half of his body smashed beyond recognition. Sideswipe looked no better… the same side of him was smashed, the same as his brother, though his left hand was completely missing, smashed off at some odd time in their crash. There was rubble stuck in their bodies, speared through at random intervals. The only thing Sideswipe lacked was the damage on his right side that Sunstreaker had.

Ratchet hastily motioned me over. "Nightstrider, Nightstrider! Please, please, _please_ tell me you have all your medical equipment on you. MoonRacer and I are out of the metal we need to repair them further."

I dropped to my knees at the heads of my mates, jarring my belly, and then began emptying my subspaces. There were a couple lost cubes of energon I had forgotten about since Chicago, which Ratchet commented would have fermented into a high grade now without the refinery it usually would be stored in, and many medical tools. There were salves, pastes, goops, tapes, wraps, wires, Cybertronian anesthesia, various other Cybertronian drugs, books, and a bunch of other junk. I even found a vial or two, maybe three or four, of some type of poison Wheeljack had made for me some odd months ago, saying I could tip my claws in it and one scratch would cause immense pain and rather quick melting of the metal if it was where it could wear through the many layers of armor quickly. Supposedly it wouldn't harm humans, only Cybertronians, so I was never to use it in practice. Forgotten, it had simply sat in my subspace, brewing and growing more potent, according to Wheeljack. I put it back, the poison, into my subspace. Finally I found my store of metal, immense in amounts and proportions since Ratchet kept restocking me when I never used any of it. Setting the metal down near Ratchet, I gently touched the sides of my mates helms that were relatively undamaged. Ratchet Set to work as MoonRacer left to check on Jazz, who was sitting with Prowl on one of the berths.

"I'm sorry." I said softly. "I froze like a deer in the fucking headlights." I stroked them tenderly. Garbled noise came from their mouths, some type of Garbled Cybertronian that I did not understand. "I'm sorry, I don't know what you're trying to say."

'_Don't worry.'_ Sunstreaker's voice came in loud and clear, flowing through my spark and into my processor. '_Not your fault. It's his. Always his._'

'_Hissssssssssssss._' Sideswipe hissed. '_Galvatron's fault. Not yours, never yours._'

'_He chose to come,_' Sunstreaker spoke, his voice clearer then his brothers, despite it looking like he had more cranial damage. _'We did not make him attack, or kill._' His hand, the injured one closes to me twitched. Gently I reached down and clasp it softly, and his dinged up digits curled softly around my hand, clinging with a strength unbefitting of a form as pounded as this. '_Strong. Strong he is. But all together, we are stronger. Much stronger._'

Sideswipe nudged me minutely with his mind, asking for my hand to take his. Stiffly, so I didn't hurt him by accident, as his right hand had a nice hidden hole through the palm of it, scorched by something so it did not bleed, I closed my hand around his. Pain flashed through the bond, and I went to yank my hand back. His fingers closed like the jaws of a pit bull, never to open again unless he decided to do so. '_Your hurting, Sideswipe. Let go._'

'_Hurts more to be apart from you,'_ he said clearly, '_then it does to touch you. Please, don't deny me your touch. It distracts me from the pains._'

'_I'm sorry.'_ Sunstreaker rumbled over the bonds. His one good optic burned brightly as he stared silently up at me, his and Sideswipe's garbled Cybertronian chatter having stopped long ago. _'For arguing with you earlier. I'm glad you did not board that ship. We would have lost you.'_

I thrummed softly to him as he keened in pain when Ratchet reached over and yanked out one of the lodged pieces of rock. _'Its all right, Sunstreaker. I shouldn't have been so pushy, but I'm glad I pushed in a way. I would not have wanted to be on there ether._'

'_Yes.'_ He agreed faintly.

"Nightstrider?" Ratchet asked. "Can you go grab your father and Ironhide? We need to move them to some berths. It's not good on them to be on the floor. Then, when you're done, check in with MoonRacer. See if she needs help with Jazz; she'll instruct you if she does need you."

I turned blank optics to him. "Yes." I answered. Shifting, I tried to get up. They wouldn't let me go. "I can't get free."

'_Don't go.'_ Sideswipe asked.

'_Please don't go,'_ Sunstreaker said softly, '_we cant lose you again. You have to stay near us. __**Please**__… he almost got you…_'

"I'll be right back, I wont leave the room, but Ratchet has to take care of you. He can't do that with me in the way." Sideswipe let off a soft keen, and I gently rubbed the least damaged finger with my thumb. "Please? The sooner I go, the sooner we can get you repaired." And the sooner they were both repaired, the sooner I could hold them and take comfort in their embrace. "Please? Sideswipe? Sunstreaker?"

Sunstreaker's hand loosened, and then fell limply open. '_Alright. Doc-bot will fix us soon, I hope…_'

'_Primus should have fixed you,'_ I said back. '_I agreed to his price, both of them, we all did.'_

'_We were dieing, Nightstrider._' Sideswipe clutched my hand tighter, pain flashing from his hand once more over the bond. '_Our central processors were damaged, and our sparks weren't being told to beat any longer. We fought to stay, but we were slipping, slowly slipping. Primus bright us back; healed our processors to the point where we would not offline. He gave us the will to stay alive, and even now, I feel the pull of the matrix's oblivion.'_ His hand loosened, and then it, too, fell open, revealing the slowly now bleeding hole in his hand, and some bare circuitry. '_Come back to us when you can.'_

'_What do you mean both?'_ Sunstreaker rumbled softly. '_What did you agree too?'_

'_Well…_' I thought for a second. Then I simply transferred his voice as it was saved in my memory core, Primus's baritone ringing over the bond. '_**Very well! I have decided my price! For my help, I have decided, that as both punishment for breaking my vice of silence, you will be forced to outlive all that you care about! You will survive time and time again, pain, punishment, dismemberment, watching your friends and family be torn apart. You will watch the fall of earth, the rise of your race, and the continuation of the humans. You will watch your sparklings grow, have sparklings of their own, and their own have sparklings, and so on, until they all die off of old age. Then, once the last of your friends who have known you have died off, you perish, leaving behind no memory of your remaining behind!**__ That's what he said.'_ I said.

I received nor reply over the bonds, and sensed them stewing angrily. Carefully I stood, wobbling slightly, though First Aid, who had bound over finally, gently steadied me. I gave him a curt nod, and then strode, or rather slightly waddled, back into the crowd. Finding my father at the head of it, next to my mother, I tugged his arm, and then tugged him over to Ironhide. I snagged Ironhide's gun, the easiest thing to grab, and then tugged him back out of the crowd with my father in tow as well. When we were clear of stepping on anyone's toes, or in the case of humans, on their whole bodies, I turned to them. "I need you both to go help Ratchet lift Sideswipe and Sunstreaker onto one of the berths."

Optimus carefully tugged his hand from me as Ironhide nodded wordlessly and moved to scoop up one of my twins. "Are you… alright?" Papa asked. "Primus… just lifted you, as if he had done so on many other occasions." He set his hand on the side of my helm, stroking his thumb over my face plat and audio receptor. "You are undamaged?"

I placed my hand over his and nodded. "Yeah. I'm all right for the most part. A little shaken up, but nothing else." I frowned softly. "That's because he has done it before." I spoke freely, I realized. I didn't even stop to think about a lie, just blurted it out. "When I died in Egypt, and when I died the first time. He lifted me a lot, usually to tote me around since I couldn't move as fast as he could. He wasn't as big in Limbo as he is now. In limbo, he was roughly your size, if maybe five or six feet taller."

"I see." Prime rumbled softly. He sighed and dropped his helm to softly press his forehead against mine. "Sparkling, my sparkling, always my sparkling. You worry me at times. Few other bots would speak as casually about this as you do. Dieing and coming back is no small feat, sweetspark. Few others have ever accomplished this; and none as much as you."

In my original universe, I could argue that I was not even _on_ the same scale as Optimus. Optimus died so many times; I cannot even count them all anymore. At least once in every series, I think. And if he didn't die, it sure as hell looked like he did. "Really Papa, its not all that much." Not compared to you anyways. "But I'll tell you more about it later, or perhaps, actually, Primus can show you later."

"Provided he beats Unicron." Papa corrected.

I pulled back and let Papa's hand drop to his side. "'Ye o' such little faith.'" I botched a quote from someone I that I don't remember who said it. "Papa, he'll beat him. If it looks like he's losing, he's probably doing it to fuck with our minds."

He frowned softly at me. "Perhaps. For now, stop cursing."

"I'll curse as much as I want, papa. Now, shoo, go help Hatchet before he cracks a gasket waiting for you." Optimus thrummed and moved off to Ratchet and everyone. I sighed and plodded towards Moonracer, who has Jazz on his side and was checking the sparklings position. When I shuffled up on the other side of the bed where Prowl was perched attentively in a chair, his wings ridged as he acutely watched his mate, I asked, "How's he doing?"

"C'ntract'ns Suck." Jazz spoke before his caretaker could get a word in. "Suck's worse 'n Purgin' ahl da' time did."

Moonracer thrummed. "He's doing well, considering all the action of the day. He'll be ready for me to remove the sparkling in just a few minutes. Would you like to see how it's done, Nightstrider?"

I pursed my lips. "Kind of, but not really. Ratchet said I had to help you though, so I guess I'll watch." I shifted, planting a hand on my hip as my door wings cocked to the side. The sparkling shifted fussily inside me, and I shifted my internal engine to soothe the little thing to sleep hopefully. "Where do you want me to stand?"

"Well, your fine where you are. I'll most likely make use of your hands for holding up a sheet, so you'll have to stand behind me when it some time," she tugged out a large tarp from her subspace, "to give us some privacy. You're taller then I am, so just watch over my shoulder and be ready to watch the fastest spark birthing you'll have ever seen."

"Says yah, femme-doc-bot." Jazz grunted.

"Yes, I did say so." Moonracer barked back softly. "Now, hold still for a second, Jazz. I need to see if the sparklings head is in position yet." She checked gently, shifting her hand to that she could feel for the neck and shoulders. "Yes, yes it is." She stood up and moved between his legs, rifling through her subspace.

I moved behind her and stretched the tarp, using my littler hands to give it a bit more coverage as well. She placed her needed tools down and checked the pressure on his stomach plating. "You know," I drawled curiously, " if Jazz has a port like us femmes do, then why does he have the sparkling via surgery?"

Moonracer thrummed. "Ratchet never taught you about adult mech anatomy did he?"

I frowned. "Okay, I have two mates, and have interfaced enough to know what the adult mech anatomy looks like. In fact, I've had a very up close and personal view of it."

Waving a hand dismissively, Moonracer thrummed. "Well, I doubt you've looked farther back, behind a special plating between the legs, roughly where our own ports are located, only a wee bit farther back." Jazz gave a small grunt of discomfort, and I watched his stomach-plating move with his sparklings shifting and wiggles. "They have a port down there as well, much like our own, but with its own differences. Few mechs have the gestational chamber, as you already know, and it has to be implanted or created and them implanted. Where our ports stretch and flex to accommodate things entering and leaving the area, Mech ports do not. It has something to do with the metal, as mechs are made differently then we are. Theoretically, if a mech were to have a lover who was too… large, shall we say, than upon exiting, even flaccid, the interface rod could be sheered off by the tightness and firmness of the port."

I blinked bleakly. "Okay… I guess that makes sense."

Moonracer thrummed and withdrew a large cutting blade. "Unfortunately, Jazz, I don't have any numbing agent for you."

"'s fine, Doc." He grunted uncomfortably again. Prowl patted his hand softly, giving support to his mate.

"I do!" I chirped. Holding part of the sheet in my mouth, I used my now free left hand to shuffle through my subspace. I found a couple of the Cybertronian anesthesia injections, and I found the vials of acidy poison stuff. Perhaps I would have Wheeljack install them in my claws later. Handing one of the syringes to Moonracer, I took the cloth back into my hands and held it aloft once more. "I have quite the supply of medical supplies from you and Ratchet constantly restocking me."

Moonracer smiled. "Good! Now hold still, Jazz. It's gonna be a small prick, and then you'll be numb and oblivious to what I'm doing to you."

"Sounds real bad, doc." Jazz grinned dryly. "Go for it." Moonracer gently stuck it into one of his cables, and then, a few moments later, he gave off a soft noise. "Ah'm numb, doc."

Moonracer made an incision on his stomach plating then, the taut metal sliding back beneath her blade, revealing the swelled and rapidly contracting and moving gestational chamber. Before she pulled that out, she tugged out a welder from her subspace and she also pulled out many towels. Once Moonracer was done with that, she made a small incision and then wiped away the goop, oil, and whatever Cybertronian fluid is in there. When the towels had absorbed most of it, she finished making the incision, and then beckoned Prowl over with a flick of her helm. "Take Nightstrider's place. I need her to clean off your sparkling."

"Of course." Prowl replied calmly. He took the tarp from my hands and then motioned me around the tent.

I moved around, catching sight of Moonracer pulling out a silver squirming, wet, and rather silent sparkling. She handed it off to me, along with some towels, pointing with a rather nasty looking finger to a large sink over there. "Wash her off over there; I trust you know how to do that?"

"Yes." I retorted softly. I looked down at the little sparkling, having automatically cradled it softly to my belly to keep her warm. Turning, I walked across the distance to the sink, feeling eyes of Jazz, Prowl, and many other Autobots and humans watching me as I did so. Setting the towels on the side of the sink tub, I turned the water on with one hand and let it warm. Once it was warm and half way full, having stopped up the bottom with a plug, I rested the sparkling over my arm and began to rinse her off. She giggled and cooed, not at all bothered by the strange, warm, liquid stuff she was being rinsed with. "Goodness, little thing." I chuckled softly at her, when I flipped her over so she was facing me upright, and so I could wash her stomach. "You sure are going to be a spark breaker, aren't you?" In response, she twittered musically in infant Cybertronian babble.

When she was clean, dry, warm, and fairly happy being wrapped in a big and fluffy towel, I moved back to Jazz and Prowl. Prowl was whispering softly to his mate as they watched me, and Moonracer, having apparently finished welding Jazz up, was cleaning and tucking her tools away. "Here's your little femme," I said, passing the cooing sparkling to Jazz. "What are you going to name her?"

"Rave." Jazz answered simply. "Lil' baby Rave."

I smiled and left the new family too their own devices, going back to Ratchet. He looked up at me and frowned softly. "I've put them in Stasis, so they would quit stressing over trying to reach for you. Are you alright with this?" his optics lowered to my belly slightly. "Any contractions or anything like that?"

"Nope, not really. A couple spasms, but nothing that lasted. It mostly twinges when the sparkling is fussing big time." Resting a hand on a spot that my sparkling was kicking furiously, I nodded. "Yeah. If they stress trying to get me, then it'll make me stress, and if I stress, then the sparkling starts fussing. When the sparkling fusses, it makes my stomach ache, unfortunately." Sunstreaker and Sideswipe were numb over the bond, but it wasn't the same type of numb as before. The last one had been more of a death numb. This, this was a sleeping kind of numb; peaceful, without pain or panic. It was nice, though I would love to simply sit and cuddle with them, to make sure they were all right, and I wasn't going to lose them.

"Moonracer said you did very well, Nightstrider." He said. "And I do too. Perhaps, later, after this is all done, I can do a transfer, and share all my medical knowledge with you, if you'd like. You make a handy extra hand, when there's not enough hands to go around."

I wiggled my extra hands, having let them slide from my fingers. "I got you covered on the extra hands bit, but honestly, I'm not interested in a medical track. I'd much rather be on the front line kicking ass and take names."

"And interface rods." Ratchet commented again.

"Yes, those too."

"Regardless," He sighed softly. " If you ever change your processor, then the offer is going to always be open for you to learn." Ratchet's eyebrow plate quirked upwards softly as he stood himself up, rocking back on his footpads as he dusted off. "Well, so long as I am online, anyways. If not, then someone can patch my information to you via comm. link, or a physical corded link." He waved me off. "Go watch the glass and relax, young one. Get some recharge. Tell me if you start to feel anything like contractions. We don't know what the day's stress may have done to you; you could fall into an early labor."

Saluting him, I sighed. "Aye, aye, sir."

"Don't sass me femme." Ratchet scolded me softly before sending me on my way with a hand to my back. "I make your energon how you like it, and I can tamper with it."

I chose not to reply, instead choosing to press a hand to my lower back struts and walk my way over to the window. Most of the bots had scattered to sit, to wait, and probably to refuel with their human counterparts. Optimus and Ironhide remained staring up through the glass, Starscream watching silently from the sidelines. Stepping forth, to seat myself on the soft red velvet cushioned bench next to the window, I propped my now aching feet up and stretched softly, resting my back along one of the arms of it. My hands folded over my stomach. I sighed again.

Shifting, I grunted as my sparkling nailed me hard in one of my little metal organs. "Thanks, little one. I just _so_ needed that right now."

Optimus lumbered over and lifted my feet gently before sliding under them, letting them rest in my lap. His big hands closed over them, and I withdrew my claws as far back as I could so I didn't hurt him with them. Then, Papa's fingers started rubbing the plates softly, unknotting wires. "This is so strange." Optimus sighed stiffly. "There are things you cannot speak of, things in your past you cannot share it seems." He cast a look up at Ironhide. "Go be with your love, old friend of mine. Your daughter needs your reassurance."

"And your cannons." I piped up softly. "She admires your cannons and would like a pair when she's older."

"Perhaps, perhaps. I might install a smaller set for Velocity when," Ironhide corrected himself. "If we all get back to earth."

"We will, Ironhide." I said. "If not now, then in a while. I figure time wont pass much while we're here, but I could be wrong. If we're in the god's realm, time really is controlled by Primus. So, I suppose we only have to have hope." I blinked at him, noting something odd in his gaze. "What's eating you? Besides the whole doom and gloom that's got everyone in its creepish snares, that is."

Ironhide pressed a palm to his face and gave a slightly dark and hysterical chuckle before he composed himself, straightening like a soldier at attention. "I never used to believe in Primus. I figured we all came from some place, someplace far away, and were left on Cybertron by accident. I never turned to Primus for prayers to help me change my life, though use his name in swears and insults I did, almost every day." He sighed. "Now, he's proven that he's real. It's kind of tossed my whole world on its head."

I motioned with a hand to his mate and child. "Go be with your family. Believe me when I say that they can ground you faster then a seeker with a fear of heights."

"She's right; go." Optimus said. "I wish to spend some time getting grounded with my family as well. I will keep watch." Ironhide gave one stubborn grunt, and then ambled heavily away to go embrace his family, scooping up Chromia first, and then Velocity and settling them in his lap. "He really is full of… soft stuff, I think it is, behind his outer skeleton."

"You mean being filled with cotton stuffing behind a hard shell, Papa?"

"Yes." He nodded. "I have much to improve on when it comes to human sayings and like-terms and the such."

"Well, you have long to learn."

"And we have time for the story of your life that I do not know."

"Not enough time, believe me. It's quite the tale. Perhaps I should write a book about it."

He sighed. "Perhaps. But, you can at least get me started."

I shook my helm. "Nope. Telling it all would stress me beyond belief. I'm on a no stress strict activity roster for the next long while, and I have orders to simply sit and relax, I'll probably catch some recharge if I can. Ratchet said so."

"I dare not disobey him then." He teased stiffly.

"Damn straight." I nodded with a dry half grin. "He'll nail you with a wrench."

"Then get some rest, Nightstrider. I'll keep you company." Optimus gave me a soft smile, his optics humming brightly.

I closed my optics and relaxed softly, flexing out my door wings so they wouldn't be squished at all. "I probably will." It turns out that I did. I dreamt of peace, rest, relaxing, and a nice hot sauna and Jacuzzi tub in Cybertronian size, followed by a nice dip in another cold Cybertronian pool. Some unknown amount of time passed, long enough that I recharged for a while, having drifted off to the melodic sound of my Father's engine whirring and moving, and the soft but firm pressure on my foot plates. I was woken when Papa gently shook my shoulder to wake me up.

"Nightstrider, get up." He gently moved my legs and helped my groggy self to my feet, supporting me as I wobbled. "Look out there; you see that?" he pointed at something far off in the distance from the glass.

I looked where his finger pointed, and focused my optics on it. Way out there, a portal similar to a black hole was opening. Through the hole tumbled the gigantic humanoid form of Unicron, the horns on his helm adding to his immense girth. His colors varied on various parts of his body, the bright and dim contrast of it much different then Primus's varied grays and blacks. Unicron, in his non-planetary form, was still smaller then the full form of Primus, but Unicron's chest plates and stomach were a little rounder, and glowed slightly with the colors of the most vivid hell fire paintings. Truly a living purgatory where the souls of the damned and the innocent both are taken for purging until they give up and give into his will. Primus tumbled after Unicron, wielding some type of giant trident like thing, swinging it wildly as Primus quickly shut the wormhole.

As Unicron was picking himself up, we heard him laugh. His laugh was worse then the one Galvatron had possessed; Unicron's laugh seemed to reek of ridicule, scorn, death, torture, torment, and the sounds of millions and millions of dead Cybertronian souls crying for salvation; to be saved from their forced eternal hell that they had unwillingly been sentenced into going to dwell in. "Oh Brother; it seems like you finally grew the ball bearings to fight me one on one, with spectators no less." His helm turned towards us and he smiled creepily, as if he could see us through the realm barrier. "Hello, little food-stuffs. I miss you so, oh my very delectable edibles."

Primus gave an angry roar, leaping across the small gap in space, literally as we were watching them fight amongst the stars, and sank his trident deep into Unicron's belly. "You will not speak to them! You will not harm them, and you will not mention eating them in my presence!" Unicrons's energon seeped heavily, and a few little Cybertronian souls made a break for it, leaving through the wound with the energon and ascending into the matrix. The energon seeping from Unicron was a blue like color, though it was tinted with the color of freshly churned and erupted magma from a volcano, though it lacked the harmful ashes.

Unicron, despite the seemingly fatal wound, smiled darkly. "Oh brother, brother, brother mine dearest. I can taunt them so long as I wish, unless you give me back m minion, who remained locked in your subspace. Then, he can go play with your precious army of Autobots while I fight and destroy you."

_(**I meant for it to be longer, but, anon, I am much too tired. As I said, life is getting in the way, and as school finals approach, my pressure and stress is rising like a flash flood. I'll try and update later, but, as I cannot focus on writing anything like a ten thousand word chapter, you will just have to read this in bits.**_

_**Sorry for the late update by the way. I hope you enjoy it, though, again, I lied. The next chapter, for sure, will have some kick ass ness. This one, well, in a way, it was a bit of venting for me in my sleep-deprived state.**_

_**Enjoy~**_)


	100. I Will Not Bow

(_**Well HOT DAMN! It's been forever since I updated, and that's in no due part to a lot of various problems. Anyways,, for some of you, this is probably going to be a downer, but Grab It By The Horns really only has three or four chapters left, including this one and an epilogue. As for a sequel, it's still up in the air. I might do one, or I might just let this story end. Really, if I tried to do a sequel, there's not much really that could be done to make it better then this one. There are some folks who can make the sequel better then the first, I know too many to name on here, but I don't feel that I am one of them. If I do make another Transformers fanfiction, (undoubtedly after a break I will) it'll probably not follow along the same plot line as this, or even the same Oc. I don't knot. Its still up in the air, truly. I might, or I might not. I suppose it all depends on the bunnies I catch, and the plots that I discover once I skin their corpses.**_

_**Now, my excuse for the length between updates. Well, for all of the weekend that I was supposed to update, I was hopped up on pills, because half of my throat was swelled shut, and I couldn't eat solids for a week or so. As for now, I'm busy with a carving project now that I'm officially out of school for the summer, and my mother doesn't seem to give up the computer any more.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy this uber immensely late update, and sorry for the shortness of it. I just can't seem to write uber long things like 'Grimoire of Good-byes' anymore. Anyways, enjoy chapter 100! :D I reached my goal! Woot!**_

_**Mind you, 'I Will Not Bow' by Breaking Benjamin mostly brought this chapter to you. I suggest listening to it while reading this.**_)

Optimus gently settled me down in the same seat he had asked me to move from previously, and helped me shift comfortably to watch the fate of Earth be duked out between two brothers. Primus leapt at Unicron with a howl rivaling the sound of two planets colliding, and they went tumbling, grappling with one another, through space. Primus let lose these unholy sized large claws, claws that Unicron mirrored, and tore at his brother. The souls of lost and devoured Cybertronians zipped out of wounds that Unicron received, some going and flowing into Primus, perhaps to give strength to their savior. Those who did not aid Primus, fled from the battle, heading probably towards the matrix as the glowing spark-like balls of light that they were. In a strange kind of way, they looked like beautiful, bright, moving stars.

The energon that Unicron and Primus leaked from the wounds that were inflicted upon one another crept back through space and into the wounds that the energon had come from, healing it up almost immediately. The newly healed wounds were simply returned back into gouges from various claw swipes, the energon escaping and then returning. Unicron continued his taunts onto Primus, telling him, in quite good description, of how he would devour is like he did the other souls and bodies he had killed previously, including the peaceful race that resided not far from Cybertron, some type of gelatinous forms that loved to cuddle, though they gummed up the circuits of Cybertronians. Unicron spoke of how he would like to strip all of us in the pocket space to our very cores, meaning protoform bodies and naked human bodies, and then tare us apart like we were little bites of cotton candy and eat us alive, letting other slowly listen to their impending fates approaching swiftly with each being devoured.

His descriptions were vivid enough that it reminded me of my own trip down insanity lane, and how my inner insanity had descriptively told me how I would kill each and every person, and paint the walls in a tirade of colors with their inner fluids. I shuddered softly, tuning out his words, instead focusing on helping Lennox climb up my leg so he could get a better look at what was happening outside the glass. I settled him instead on the mound of my stomach plating; his meager weight not even a bother for me to hold. He sat down, and, soon enough, I had most of his squad up, sitting on my rounded stomach, watching raptly at the battle unfolding before our very eyes. Occasionally, my sparkling would kick and send one of them off balance. Bumblebee came forwards, I hadn't even known he was here, and placed Sam and Mikaela, who again, I hadn't known was actually here, on my stomach plating with the soldiers. They settled close, but Mikaela sat with her hand clasped in one of the soldiers, a young man apparently she had been dating for a month.

As I turned my attention from them back to the fight, I caught one of Primus's well-returned insults. "You yeasty ill-bred scut! I should have never allowed your creation!" Primus growled, his hand currently digging deeply into Unicron's stomach plating, claws digging and ripping, allowing more and more souls and sparks to be free from their accursed confine.

"Brother, father, twin, myself, my yang." Unicron growled. "My creation was eminent. I am apart of you, I could never have fully disappeared or been ignored and stuffed in the far reaches of your processors." His fist shot up, impaling through Primus' stomach plattings, scrabbling out the other side and ripping at his back plattings. "I am you, you are me. We are one in the same. I am your curse, your insanity, just as you are mine." He gave a dark chuckle that had my armor raising ridged like a porcupines quills. "My wants are yours, and yours are mine. I want to save the mortal creatures, and I want to devour them. I need to devour them to sate this endless hunger that I inherited from you."

"In all my power," Primus ripped himself free, his ancient innards pulling free of the plattings with a tremendous wet squelching noise, and then shoved his brother back. Clutching a large clawed hand to his abdominal region, Primus pulled back to collect himself and heal. "You will be stopped, even if that means I must take you back into the place from whence you came. The young one who made the deal was right, in some ways. I can see clearer now. I have let this linger for far too long, brother mine. Many deaths could have been prevented." Having seemingly caught his 'breath' in a way, Primus leapt back at Unicron, who was recovering from the shove and various cuts and gouges along his armor and body.

Unicron wrapped his arms around his brothers' torso, almost like a bear hug, and began ripping off armor. "Brother," he whispered, though it seemed to reverberate like a cruel and twisted bass drum next to an amplifier through the thick glass of which we hid behind. "You would take me back into your spark? Make us whole again? Submit yourself to the tortures my mind will force upon yours millisecond after millisecond for the rest of our eternal lives? I'm shocked you care so much." He tore armor chunk after armor chunk from Primus, and was returned with vigor for his handiwork for his brother.

A roar made my audio receptors ring, the guttural sound torn from Primus's vocal box. "It is not so much caring for you as honoring my word! There was a deal struck for me to stop you, and by my will of power, I will!" He gave off a sneer, his face plattings twisting under his flailing soft metal beard like structure on his face. "I can kill you, brother. I can, and if you push me too far, I will."

Primus received a large metallic fist to the face for his efforts, and Unicron chuckled. He flipped himself over his brother and pinned Primus down, sitting on him to keep him down. Primus fought, flipping, flailing, clawing, but was kept down. Unicron seemed to have a hell of a time holding him down too; the darker bot having struggled and wobbled to restrain his elder brother. Unicron leaned down and whispered again to his brother. "Perhaps, brother mine, I will distract our spectators for a while, hmm? I have plenty of minions in my subspace to send to them, and let them… play." He cackled. "Yes, yes! Then, I can conquer you without their little optics snooping. Then," he sounded gleeful, "perhaps your little deal maker will die as well."

Primus snarled, bucking and managing to catch his brother off guard. He flipped their position, snarling. "No! Leave them out of this!" he snarled.

Unicron took a lucky swipe at Primus's face, hissing in his ferocious malevolence. "Too late, brother. Now, let the hell befall them all!"

"No harm will befall them under my care! Not one Autobot, Decepticon, Neutral, or Human!" Primus answered with a garbled sneer, energon spilling from his oral cavity.

"Protect them from death, you might." Unicron agreed solemnly, passing a bashing fist into his brothers' chassis, having freed his confined arms. "But from losing limbs? Losing energon? What about being mauled alive, and not being graced with the mercy of dieing after or during the mauling? No. That would take too much for you to do all the time."

Primus jammed his fist through the lower portion of his brothers' skull, the wound healing as fast as he pulled his fist free. "You might be right, but it doesn't mean that I wont give them boosted strength when they need it, damn the consequences for myself." He punched his brother again, tearing off part of his brothers' jaw. It was the last of their fight that I would get to see for a while.

There was a kind of popping noise, and then the room was filled with a roar of chaos. My father swept me off the couch like thing, gently discarding the humans except for Sam and Mikaela on to the floor, and then, with hunched shoulders, barreled like an angry freight train going down hill through the crowd. Once he breeched the Autobot crowd, my optics widened and I curled my arms over my stomach and my two human hitchhikers. Papa barreled through a growing group of Decepticon looking things, all stranger and jagged looking then normal. They glowed with a strange and sickly purple glint, and seemed… rabid. Not quite mindless, though they walked the borderline with it, as they seemed to have a strange intelligence, like a hive, or pack mindset. The strange rather mutated looking Decepticons were also hell-bent on tearing us to little itty-bitty shreds.

As Optimus seemed to clear a path, the other Autobots spilled in behind him, piling towards the artificially made med bay, where I could faintly see Ratchet wielding a rather impressive set of saws, and First aid flailing about with a nice mace like thing. Moonracer was fending off the mechs with her laser scalpel. Prowl was guarding Jazz, and Jazz was shooting off pot shots with one arm, the other holding his daughter. I could faintly see Sunstreaker and Sideswipe sitting upright, firing off shots with damaged arm cannons. The repairs that Ratchet and First Aid managed to get done were just enough to allow them to sit upright and fight from prone positions. From a small peeky hole in my fathers well-armored armpit, I caught sight of Leo rushing with Elita, little Bo tucked protectively under his curled over chassis. Also, I managed to glimpse Arcee running with Chromia, and Ironhide barreling right behind them like another, smaller but more armored, freight train. Tucked in his arms, was a terrified Velocity, hunkered down, though her small mace was transformed and tucked harmlessly against her chest. Starscream, in all his mighty and large seeker bulk, came through the crowd like a stealth bomber on the fly with his mate and child in tow.

When we all, as in Papa with me, Leo with Bo and Elita, and then Ironhide with Chromia, Velocity, and, if Ironhide's retracting chest plates were anything to go by, the maniacal little twins of theirs, and of course Starscream with Whiplash and the little mechling Starwhip, got in make shift area for the med bay, the other Autobots fanned out and created a living violent wall, propelling enemy forces back. Okay… so it wasn't as cool as it sounds. The malevolent forces of Galvatron's little mini army surged upon us like sharks in the middle the movie 'Spring Break Shark Attack', driving us closer back until those of us who were carrying cargo, or being carried, could be let go and our carriers could go fight. Meaning, I was set down on a berth, Sam and Mikaela rested behind me in safety, and then Bo, Alpha and Beta were shoved in my arms. Velocity took up post next to my leg, and I handed her the whimpering Twins. I settled Bo in Leo's arms, and then stood, letting my weapons in my shoulders and hips show themselves.

"Guard Sam, Mikaela, and the sparklings, alright, Leo? Velocity?" I said. I shifted, scanning for a good spot to take aim from so I wouldn't hit anyone with my long distance shots. "You hear me? That is an order. Not a sibling suggestion. I'm going to give them some cover fire, all right? I'm not too sure everyone made it to the med bay." It didn't look like Wheeljack was in the crowd of defending Autobots.

"Yes Ma'am." Leo said. He moved and took Sam and Mikaela into his arms to settle them near Bo. "We'll watch them, and watch your back, okay Sis?"

"Okay." I nodded. I found myself a good corner near the front of the med bay, exactly three feet behind the line of brawling bots preventing us from being overwhelmed, where I could not so nimbly scour a large shelving unit. It was taller then my father, and should be wide enough for my lard ass to rest comfortably on when I get myself up there. "Velocity?"

She saluted me with one hand, juggling her brothers in the other. "Yes sir, orders understood sir."

I waggled my hand. "None of this sir stuff. Sir is reserved for my Father, Ratchet, and your dad." I turned my back on them again, flaring my wings as I surveyed my rout to the shelf. "If you find yourself in need of assistance, I'll try and get here. If I cant make it, retreat to Sunstreaker and Sideswipe. Sit between their berths, and shoot when you can. These bastards are big, so don't take them alone by hand." I spotted an opening, and took it, darting as fast as my pregnant form could hustle. As I'm twenty something feet tall, and have gotten used to the unbalancing lump situated in front of me, its pretty fast, though not as fast as some of my comrades could do. When I got my self up the shelf with multiple almost falls, I sat myself in a sitting position and unhooked my hip blasters. The blasters found themselves in my hands, where I started shooting at the helms of the demented Deceptions with both the weapons in my hands and the ones on my shoulders.

I was right about the fact that Wheeljack had gotten left behind out in the sea of writhing, fighting Decepticons. Wheeljack wasn't the only one, however. Bluestreak was back to back with Cliffjumper, working hard to keep from being overwhelmed by the sheer and slowly growing number of Decepticons filling the area. In a further part of the room, which was much larger then I had originally saw now that I am at a high vantage point, Bulkhead was being overwhelmed as Wheeljack fought to get to him and give him some coverage. Turning my blasters, I started felling what cons I could, the sickly purple of their energon splattering from well-placed shots to the neck and helm. For every con I felled, however, it seemed two new and fresh ones would appear and take their place. My futile attempt as assistance, however, was enough for Wheeljack to get back to back with Bulkhead. From there, they seemed to be working their way towards Bluestreak and Cliffjumper. I aided when I could, focusing on them with my hand blasters, and using my auto lock on my shoulder cannons to provide cover fire and back up for the bots down on the technical frontlines.

From my vantage point above everyone by the forty something odd foot shelf, I could see Unicron and Primus fighting vehemently. There was energon shed, floating in space, body parts discarded for the newly instant re-grown ones floating about as well. Pert of Primus' jaw floated past the window, followed by Unicron's left bunch of optics. They now had weapons with them; Primus has a rather large and strange alien spear like thing, and Unicron was wailing away at his brother with a damned wicked looking scythe like object. As Unicron sunk the scythe into his brothers shoulder strut, rendering the arm from its socket in one foul swoop, Primus plunged the spear through the spot where Unicron's reproductive organ would be. My attention was drawn back to our fight inside here before I could see his reaction.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the frenzied Decepticons began driving us back further into the depicted medical area even though none of them had let loose any fire or energon weapons shots. It was strictly physical combat. Inch by inch, though, the Autobots were beaten back as the Cons began to pile up. Even with the four separated bots having gotten back with the main group, we were losing ground. My father was using his hooks to tear them apart, but it seemed we were only getting weaker, tired, worn out. These Decepticons seemed to have limitless energy. When a split helm from a Decepticon splattered up the wall and onto my leg, I felt the limb grow weaker. I optics zeroed in on the thick, pulsating purple liquid, so much more tainted and darker then my own; dark Energon, my processor provided for me. Supposedly the blood of the dread lord Unicron, fed to his lackeys so he could fully control each and every one of them and their movements. I felt the millions of tiny rings, wires, and other strong but fragile parts in my optics cycle around as my optics widened. Dropping one of my hand blasters, I pulled a rag from my subspace and wiped the energon off, or what I could of it. It seeped below my armor, saturating some of my wires. After a few seconds, I felt the wires grow pained, and then fall numb, a strange and evil strength seeming to inhabit them.

Part of my processor, the dark part that lays in most all Cybertronian soldiers of war until the end of their time, found this dark power pleasuring, like a sure fire way I would defeat my enemies at any cost. Pleasure painted up gruesome pictures of obtaining more of that delectable dark fluid; lapping it from dying corpses, the walls, or just sucking it from the cables and tubes of my enemies. Thoughts came of me bowing before someone to get more of this delectable delicacy, doing bad things to obtain this lethal drug, just to feel the pleasure of its power. I panicked slightly at the feeling, and my panic brought about a sudden surge of movement and pain within my belly as my sparkling reacted. The panic brought me back to reality, and I focused on things beside what the energon seemingly kept trying to shove into my mind.

"I will not bow, mother fucker!" I hissed. I brought love to my mind, family, protectiveness, purity, and normal blue, untainted energon. Subspaceing a large jug of water, I poured it down the tainted spot. Most of the feelings, encroaching and otherwise, disappeared, though some lingered, like the strength in the limb.

"Dark energon!" I called shrilly over the public Autobot communication lines, my processor spinning madly with the discovery of it. "These 'Cons are full of it! It saps your strength! Try to avoid bathing yourself in it!" I turned back to my original position and began shooting at the cons again, my blasts aimed this time to knock them back from my faction and then kill once they were out of spraying range. I received multiple 'affirmative' messages back, short and brief, and prayed that all of them were paying attention and received the message. From Sunstreaker and Sideswipe, I began to feel various disapproving feelings over the bonds. Also, they began to spam me with messages telling me to get down, as apparently they could see me, and to get back where I could be defended without the possibility of harm to come to me. I simply argued back that everyone was needed to fight. So they let it alone, with much bitching. Honestly, I should have taken their advice.

As the enemy line encroached further and further, I soon found myself stranded, behind enemy lines with only a shelf far out of most of their range of sight to keep me from the grasping clutches of the blood stained claws decorating most of their hands. They began to take notice, though, and I had to turn any cover fire and help I could give to my friends and family to defending myself. The cons, with their nifty little claws, began climbing up the multiple shelves towards me. I tucked my legs out of reach, and let my claws slide out just in case one did manage to try and grab my leg. I hissed in the most threatening way I could, and angled my blasters, all four of them, down, firing as they tried to climb up. I got splattered with Dark energon, the stuff burning my armor and distracting my mind in ways that energon spatters should not. Sunstreaker took in most of the encroaching feeling of the energon, his own partial battle insanity, which he only sometimes had, battling out the dark energon crazies and rendering it harmless to my mind and his.

"Primus," I grunted almost silently as I fired off another shot, being blinded by a spatter of the energon that was sent up into my optics from the head of a falling Unicron-con. "Protect us all… don't let my sparkling get hurt, don't let my friend and family get hurt… please." I half pleaded, firing blindly downwards as I tried to rub the slowly encroaching blackness from my vision. The dark energon stained my vision purple, and that purple began to rapidly fade to black, bringing my vision right along with it, though I was still aware. When I could no longer see, I sent out a panicked plight to my mates to give me some cover fire if they could, or give me a warning about any con getting too close.

As I couldn't really see, I just fired in one direction, keeping my legs, belly, and limbs out of the way. Heightening my Audio receptors by turning up the perception and sensitivity was both a blessing and a curse. It allowed me to hear the cons a little better, but it also let me hear the damage that they did to my friends. Occasionally I swung my legs down to sweep anyone that I missed off the shelving, which, despite supporting several thousand pounds of robots on it, had not shifted in the slightest. Sideswipe would point out any con that I missed, and, with his images sent via the mating bond, someone had been sent out in the sea of rabid cons to try and retrieve me safely. Truthfully, I could leave with my miniature compulsion rockets in my door wings. But, blind as I am, I wouldn't be able to fly in the right direction. Apparently the one sent out was Mirage, much to Sunstreaker's annoyance. They had lost sight of him long ago, so they didn't know where he was. Last they heard via a com link, Mirage had gotten swept to the other side of the room, his invisibility cloak practically useless against a number of cons so great that there was scant moving room to go in-between the writhing mass of them.

Being blind was new to me, entirely so. I had never trained blind, though unless you count the midnight games of paintball with my human cousins back when I was still human, so I was completely new at this. My audio receptors gave me a form of eyes, but I couldn't tell precisely where they were. I was, in essence, defenseless, but not at the same time. All it would take was a strictly smart move, and I'd be con food. I had to rely on just keeping the damn fuckers off my shelf, and hope that someone could get to me eventually.

One of the cons grabbed my legs, a lucky shot, and tightened his grip. His claws dug into the thick double armored plates of my shins, the thick and long claws not puncturing past the first set of primary armor. I jerked my legs, losing one of my hand held guns as I dropped it in favor of sinking my own wicked curved claws into the walls, and sliced off the hand somewhere around the wrist joint. The Con fell back somewhere, probably landing on a comrade of his, his hands loosening from my legs. As I felt a set of hands on my upper thigh, dangerously close to my stomach, I swung my body around, knocking back a con that had gotten himself up really close. A set of protective armor that carrying femmes got, one that I had not known I'd had, slid over my stomach, thickening the plattings protecting my child from the cruelties of war, and giving me a vantage that I now had a less sensitive spot to protect. I got the inkling feeling that I had not had the armor that was covering my stomach before, and that my plea to Primus had actually done some good. I let my claws remain extended and swinging madly as I wildly groped for my lost gun. Much to my lack of luck, my hand seemed to hit it and it went skittering off the shelf, my Audio receptors told me, and landed on some unfortunate Decepticon's helm, misfiring as it went and dropping another Decepticon to the ground with a sickening squelch.

There was a scream, one of the Autobots. My helm tilted, and I recognized it as Skids. There was the sound of Mudflap scrambling to his brothers rescue, and then they both went after the Deception who had done whatever he had done to Skids. The Decepticon didn't stand a chance against them.

A large hand came up, larger then even my own Father's large hand, or even Ultra Magnus' hands, wrapped around the lower part of my right leg and squeezed. My thick armor plattings held up with a low groan, but they began to crush into my leg. As the hand started pulling at me, I dug one hand with claws into the wall, the one that had no gun now, and began kicking at the Decepticon to get him to let go. My shoulder blasters trained where their sensors said his face was, and I tried to aim my handheld gun there as well. Firing, I ripped at his hand with my un-captive leg, claws catching and tearing armor, wires, and cables. More of that fucking dark energon splattered up my body, running like water off my stomach plating, but sticking to the normal plattings, and landed din my optics again. Some got in my mouth, and I spat repetitively, crying out as the energon made my blinded optics burn with a hellfire fury. The hand holding me fell limp and fell back as I managed to hit some sort of wiring, probably the ones that allowed full motor control of the hands.

I pulled myself back up, shooting straight downward again. I waved both legs, damaged and undamaged, slicing whatever fell into my path. My Audio receptors faded into a buzz focused solely on defending my sparkling and myself. I took hints whenever I could, from bots and my family, but eventually they must have gotten shoved back enough that I was almost out of sight. Apparently Primus must have expanded the damn place so we would have places to retreat too. Damn me for hiding up here. Another hand caught my injured leg and this time it slipped free, having been moist with burning dark energon, but it took a crushed plate that had guarded the back of my calf. Now I was missing a spot of armor. Very custom, it seems, when I'm fighting. Always, my armor gets shed off.

I had to drop my other gun as a set of hands managed to grab both ankles and tug, sending my ass off the shelf. My claws dug in, straining to hold up my weight and the pulling pressure of the several Decepticons that were starting to assist the first who had caught me. My claws groaned at the pressure, I felt them wanting to tear from their sockets. I will not break, I will not fall. The main strut in my damaged leg snapped, the armor, wires, and cables the only things holding the lower half of my shin to my foot, and I screamed. My little hands transformed out of my fingertips and attached themselves further up the wall. I pulled, the cables in my arms straining as I bared my denta in a battle cry. I blindly fired, my optics not seeing what I was hitting. Eventually I managed to pull my self free once more, though it didn't last for long.

As I was shooting, having found my last hand held that I had discarded; I found that the number of warning bells my audio receptors were sending me was diminishing. The damn dark energon was throwing off my hearing now. I snarled soundlessly, and then screamed when something pulled me clean off the shelf and pressed my dark energon coated and damaged form to a thick and broad chassis.


	101. Poison

(_**HO DAMN! TWO UPDATES SO SOON? OMFG I CANT BELIEVE ITS NOT BUTTER!**_

_**I know. I'm bad as of late about not updating on time, but I hope the fast update makes you all's day.**_

_**Heya folks, I'm glad you all liked the last chapter. Now, a shout out to Araytigre, who had some very perceptive views in her reviews over the many chapters she's commented on, and unfortunately, I have failed to ever mention her. I appreciate them; 'cause they usually make me think more about what I have planned, and how to add twists, turns, and general loops that will throw all my readers around like a bull rider on a rabid bull. Thanks! To let anyone else know, detailed reviews that make me think like crazy usually get you mentioned, if I remember to add you on my list of names… and if I can find my list of names.**_

_**Anyways, thanks for all the feed back! Its always loved! Though, believe it or not, there are actually less people who view and read this story now then when it first started. Too long, maybe? I dunno. I do better with short chapters. Perhaps I might try and do a story where my chapters take you an hour to read… Nah. Not my style.**_

_**Enjoy! I look forwards to feedback on what you think of this chapter! Looks like there will be one more chapter then planned, but never fear! All will end somewhat okay~ :D**_)

I locked up, fear penetrating my spark as I fought my captor. Whomever had snagged me off the shelf, had to climb up there. Thus far, he, a he by the fact my knee brushed a more pronounced crotch plating then the seamless ones femmes have, hadn't hurt me, but then and again there was only one arm wrapped tightly around me. I struck out with my claws, bound and determined to get whoever was holding me to let go. There was a decidedly deep grunt as my hand hit deep into his stomach area, I think it was, and I was shifted so my hands couldn't do any pulling damage. I had to settle for flipping my hands painfully around and wedging my claws in-between some soft stomach plattings, or whatever I had a hold of. My claws, however, on my feet tore nice furrows in his shins. I snarled, trying to unpin my self, my fear numbing my wounds from the pain, not that the tainted dark energon wasn't already doing that in the first place.

I felt the jolt as he dropped down, some possibly thirteen thousand pounds of whomever was holding me made jolts up his body. Shuddering and writhing against him, I howled angrily as he restrained me. I bit him, sinking my dull denta into his armor and tearing at his, snarling savagely. I heard his growl, and snarled out my own words. "This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will, five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain, and a hundred percent reason to remember the name, mother fucker!" I bucked against him again, blindly writing in my trapped state.

"Primus be buttfucked!" I heard a familiar voice curse, though the curse word was apparently new to his vocabulary. "Frag it, brattling. Stop fighting! Can't you see that I'm not going to hurt you?"

"Ironhide?" I asked warily, my vocal processor slightly raw feeling, and giving me a slight smokers tinge to my voice. "Is that you?" I shifted my claws from where ever they were lodged, but did not remove them.

"Yes, sparklet, damn it, can you not see me? Can you unhook your claws please? They are close to hitting some sensitive machinery that's rather important to Chromia." The hands on my shifted and released me to balance on my one good leg, as the other tried to buckle beneath me. I couldn't hear anyone else in the room. Only the steady drip, drip, drip of falling energon from fallen bodies was heard. Farther away, muted by probably some newly made hallways, I could hear some fighting, though little of it was tangible to my ears.

"I cant." I said as I unhooked my claws from the spot I had them. I was embarrassed that I had almost neutered Ironhide, but tried my best not to show it. "See you that is." I curled my claws back into my hands, and focused my audio receptors to hear anything, though I couldn't get any warning bells. "Are we… safe down here?" my hands floated to my belly, touching the incredibly thick multi layered armored metal. "Where is everyone at? I can't hear anything besides some muted fighting."

"Everyone is down in the halls fighting off the last wave. They had to move the berths back, the ones holding your mates, Jazz, and the sparklings. Leo was on one as well; he managed to get his foot snagged by one of those rabid 'Con things. Tore it clean off, but the kid's just fine otherwise. A bit put out on the fact he couldn't help move everyone away, but, alas, most younglings get like that. As for safety, well... We're as safe as we can get." Ironhide grunted. I heard him fishing for something in one of his subspaces, and then heard the sound of some sort of liquid hitting his hands. "Let me take a look at your optics, squirt." Hi hands came up to my face, the large fingers probing at the areas where my cheekbones would be. "What… what the pit did you do to your optics?"

"Dark energon." I answered. "I got splattered with it. It's coating my armor pretty well, though some of it feels dry by now."

Ironhide hissed softly from his intakes as he brushed the edge of my optic. I didn't feel it on the eye itself, but on the metal surrounding it. "Can you even feel out of them? I just touched your optic rings, and they did not even twitch."

"No. The only thing I felt when I was splattered with the energon was burning, pain, evil, power, and then blackness." I shifted my helm slightly. "Ironhide? Are my optics lit?" If they were lit, then it was just the dried goop screwing with my vision and locking up my joints. If they weren't, then that means my optics were completely shot until Ratchet, First Aid, or MoonRacer could get around to getting me new ones and putting them in.

Ironhide tilted my helm this way and that, different angles to see if there was any Autobot blue glow coming from them. I heard the hiss of his neck struts as he moved his helm. "No. Is that bad? I'm not versed in anything more then stopping a missing limb from bleeding out. You're the one with Ratchets information rattling around in that vast processor of yours."

I moved my helm away from his prodding touch, and limped sideways a little bit. My toe claws had to sink into the ground in order to keep my balance on the energon slick tiles. As I wobbled dangerously sideways, my leg unable to support much weight with the broken main support, Ironhide grabbed my arm gently and steadied me, holding me up for the most part. "Yes," I said to him. "Yes, it is a bad thing. That means I'm blind until I can get my optics replaced or repaired."

I felt the rumble of his growl reverberate down his arm, and make his cannons rattle. "I see. Then we best hurry back to everyone, yes? I don't want to miss the last of the action." He shuffled awkwardly forwards, paused, and then moved back. His large arm shifted and picked me up, resting my pregnant self like a child on his hip. "Alright, lets go. You don't need to walk on that leg through this muck. How bad is the damage on your leg?"

I settled my head on his shoulder, my bad leg hanging limply, occasionally brushing a still warm dead 'Con body. "The main support structure is broken in one spot, or so it feels. My armor is crushed in, though the stuff managed to hold up pretty damn well when that big guy grabbed me."

"Big guy?" Ironhide asked stiffly. "As in the one laying dead not far from your perch, big guy?"

I nodded half way. "Yeah. He wasn't dead though, or at least I'm not sure if he was dead, when he released me. What's the damage on him?"

Plodding past something and hitting it with his toe, I felt Ironhide turn, but not walk the other way. "His hand looks almost severed in some spots, which I'm guessing was your handy work. There's also several burn marks and holes in his facial plattings. But I don't see the kill shot- ah, there it is. A lucky shot went straight through his optic and into his processor. That's the problem with big guys; their optics lead to easier kill shots." He tsked and started walking again.

"You sound like your talking from experience," I turned my helm sharply, hearing something shift, and then the rattle as a dead body lost is place and fell, only to be obliterated by Ironhide's trigger happy cannon. "A bit jumpy, aren't we?"

"Your one to talk, brat, on both counts." He retorted good-naturedly. "You always seem to find the ones that are bigger then you, and should by all rights whip your ass from here to Cybertron and back again. I also thought you were blind; how did you see where the noise came from?" He shifted me slightly, and I listened to the comforting safety that the whine of his cannon brought to my spark.

Reaching up with a hand, I tapped the audio spikes on my helm, my antenna twitching up from under their dark energon crusted coatings. "I have my audio receptors turned up. I can hear the fighting down the hallways." I frowned slightly. "I didn't think you'd be the one to fetch me. Why is that? I thought Mirage was out to find me?"

Ironhide gave a snort. "Mirage is too small of body to shove his way through the crowds. He got pushed back to us when we retreated down the halls, and lost sight of you. When he confirmed that he had been unable to get to you, I offered to go, since I could simply shove my way to you and back if the need arose. So, I left, and Mirage took up my place."

"That means nothing, 'Hide. You didn't have any reason to come get me and you know it. You weren't under orders, you offered. Why is that?" I pestered, listening to the slosh, slosh, slosh his feet made as they stepped in puddle after puddle of the dark energon. "How is this stuff not bothering you? I'd be writhing in pain about now."

Ironhide thrummed heavily. "I still feel that I owe you for saving me. I doubt I wont ever feel different, because by all rights I should have died. I felt it was destiny, though I didn't want that to happen." My mind flashed to the movies where he had died. "You weren't under orders to hook me up to your spark. You just did it. So, I figure after a couple of times of fetching your sorry aft from the clutches of all things evil and bonkers, we'll be one sixteenth of the way towards being even." His even and steady gait faltered as he stepped up and over something, and then he resumed talking. "As for this dark energon stuff, well, its not that hard to ignore. Sure, it hurts, but that's only if you have open wounds and scarred metal for it to get into. Remember, all of my scars foot or otherwise, are gone because my old body melted into a pile of rust. My shiny new body is a virgin to the scars of war."

I pursed my lip components, running a hand over the taut metal of my stomach as it shifted, aching. "Makes sense I suppose. You don't owe me anything, though, keep that in mind." I shifted my head. "Where are we right now?"

"We've just entered the hallway," he informed me. "From here, its just a bit of a hike through the bodies until we find Prime and everyone else… Slag, I hope they left one for me. You didn't even leave one for me when I came to get you."

"Well sorry," I said dryly. "Next time I'm in danger of being mauled without being able to die, I'll just let you come rescue me, mister tough guy."

"Awe shut up, Gimpy. You're ruining all my slag flicking." Leave it to him to start a smart-ass comment war while walking through oodles and oodles of dead bodies and their vile and toxic excrements. Leave it to me to continue the word battle with vigor. Not much else to do, really. I can't exactly sight see without being able to _see_.

"Go flick your shit one someone who can see you to flick it back at you with correct accuracy. I am not gimpy, for your information." I huffed. "So you shush your mouth, old fart." I twitched, my audio receptors picking up the sounds of another falling body. I shuddered to ponder on the whole Zombie chances. Robot zombies on steroids/dark energon. Why does that sound like an A-rated movie gone horribly wrong in the worst possible ways ever?

"Old? Brat, my frame is newer then yours! Besides," he drawled, his cannons rolling reassuringly, "It's all in the spark that counts. Spark, and of course vigor in what you love doing."

Deciding to poke fun in my own mean way, I rolled my head since I couldn't feel if I was rolling my optics or not. "Yeah, well, last time us femmes got together for a girls night out, Chromia mentioned you were lacking a bit of vigor in the down under area, if you catch my drift. Do we need to get you some viagra, old man?"

Ironhide sputtered. "If you weren't pregnant, I'd have a half a processor to drop you in this shit that I'm wading through."

I drawled again, this time pressing two of my fingers to a sharp pained spot on my stomach. The Cybertronian version of an adrenaline rush that the fear has cause was starting to wear off. Already, my leg was starting to hurt like someone had half way tried to saw the damn thing off with a serrated knife and almost succeeded. "It's not shit if it's not feces, and it's not wading if it's not up to your waste or higher."

"Shit is shit, no matter the form of our shit, or organic shit. It's still shit, no matter how you disguise it." Ironhide quipped. "Now why don't you shut your big yapper and sight see or something." Of course, make fun of the temporarily blind femme. I discretely elbowed him somewhere on the arm, and shifted uncomfortably.

"I need to be able to see in order to do that." I frowned softly, rubbing my stomach. "Say, is there anything jammed in the plates of my stomach?" the plates beneath the added armor felt tight, sore, stressed and overworked; kind of like something was jamming them up and preventing them from shifting like normal stomach armoring does on most bots.

I felt him shift me around to take a look. "No." he answered. "Why?"

Rubbing another tight and aching spot, I sighed. "Because it's starting to hurt." It was too early for me to be in labor, so what could it be? But… Ratchet said the stress could cause me to go into early labor. I tried relaxing myself back, shifting uncomfortably as I felt the dark energon that was still moist and slimy slowly drip through the tight casing of my chest and dribble down the side of my spark casing, bringing with it the burn I had come to know oh so well. "There's a good chance I might be in one of the stages of early spark birthing, but I'm currently blind and mostly ether numb or in pain, so I'm no good for trying to tell the sparkling position, let alone if I actually am in one of the stages."

I felt Ironhide tense beneath my shoulder. "That is definitely not good. I don't know how to tell about it ether." He was silent for about a millisecond, and then Ironhide spoke again. "I've informed Ratchet of your condition. He's bloody slagged off at you, so be ready to have a new whole in you're aft torn after I give you over to him. He's unhappy you've gone and stressed yourself into spark labor."

"You didn't tell him I was blind and have a broken leg, did you?"

"No. I figured you could dig yourself into even more shit about that later. I don't need to be on his shit list any more then I already am."

"Gee. Your such a great friend and ally, Ironhide." I pursed my lips, jerking as I heard one of the bodies moving, not falling, but moving. "Ironhide… one of them isn't dead…" I could hear more sounds. "Ironhide!"

Ironhide turned, and I heard his cannons clicking as the chambers turned to more ammunition that automatically loaded itself up to be shot. "Holy frag! These guys just wont go down!" I could practically hear the half smirk in his voice. "Just the kind of fight I like."

"Not with me here, you don't." I complained. "Throw me on the ceiling or something before you fight."

I heard his lip places click together in thought. "Hmm. That's an idea."

"No." I said. "That was sarcasm. Losing your hear too, now, old man?" I heard them shuffling along not far behind us. "Uh… Hmm. Are they zombies, or something?"

Ironhide chortled, his cannon firing off with an ear splitting boom, the one that I was half rested on shifting beneath me as well to shoot off a round. "Hardly, brat. These are the ones who simply escaped us. Tried to get us from behind and got lost."

"Why, then, do they sound so slow?" I asked warily.

"Most of 'em are missing limbs, and leaking energon quite nicely." He answered me, another boom sounding off. "Nothing to worry about. A sparkling could knock these guys over with a sneeze."

Further back, behind the shufflers, I could hear deeper, more bass sounding booms of something big walking along. "Yeah, well, whatever is coming along behind them isn't so slow. I can hear big feet walking."

"Confound it all!" Ironhide grunted. "That one again? I thought we took him down when we lost sight of you. I shot the braggart through his spark, I watched him fall." He shifted me back, and I heard his footsteps scoot backwards slightly as he shot down the last of the shufflers I could hear. I felt him turn swiftly, causing my stomach plattings to seize and draw a pained grunt from me, and then I began to be bounced roughly up and down. My leg hurt with the bounding of Ironhide's slightly limped gait, the metal mainframe grinding together with its other broken half underneath my armor and metal protoform flesh.

"Ow, ow, ow, ow." I grunted. Curling my hand around my stomach, I massaged the thick metal, to try and soothe the pains. I could hear whatever had made Ironhide run thumping along obliviously. "What made you run, Ironhide?" I asked, tuning my audio receptors again so that I could listen for anything we might run into. "I thought you were itching for a fight."

"Well," his voice rumbled deeply into my audio receptor, "I wasn't going to leave you against a wall like a sitting avian bird, and tossing you up the ceiling and hoping you stuck was out of the question, simply because I'm too short to grab you off of there without a step stool and it would also leave you in the direct line of sight of the thing ambling along behind us. That thing is big, mean, and nasty. I don't really feel like fighting it alone with a blind and gimpy bot for backup. You could shoot me in the aft." Ironhide let out a grunt, and I felt him vault like an Olympic runner over a pile of bodies. "We should be about here, unless they moved again…"

Apparently the thing behind us ether finally noticed us, or heard us, one of the two, because it started running towards us with a crazed and garbled roar. I shuddered, my wings going ridged and then tucking down to try and hide better. "Ironhide…"

"I know, I know!" he barked in a harassed tone. "Its bloody chasing us, and it's going to slagging catch us if I keep yammering to you about it and how it's fragging chasing us!" He sent me an image via communications line, and I shuddered slightly as I gazed at it inside my mind, where I could see it clear as day. It was thickly armored on all parts of its body except for the hands and feet. Even its stomach was armored. It was bleeding from a lot of places, missing a hand, and had one of its optics hanging out. A dark light pulsed from the place where its chest plates used to be, obviously taken out by Ironhide as he had said earlier. One of its legs looked like it was on the verge of falling off, the main strut visible at the hip joint, and I prayed that the stress of running after us made all those thousands of pounds resting on the main support of his leg even heavier, so it would snap and fall. I think, the whole thing that even bothered me about the zombie thing was the fact I _knew_ the bot, or at least part of him. His face was the same, though zombified; he had the same crinkly beard, and the same Cybertronian version of wrinkles. Jetfire, dead in Egypt. Poor bloke had his soul devoured by Unicron, and was now his walking corpse in the literal sense. How the once mighty have fallen. It looked, though, like he was simply a patchwork zombie. Part of his body I recognized from the movie; the spindly fingers and feet of the Fallen prime.

I shut my mouth, focusing on bracing myself for the leaps and bounds he seemed to make. A wave of pain rolled past my midsection, and I clenched my hand on his arm, sucking in a pained vent as it made my audios fade out to static, not letting me hear anything besides the hissing static in my ears. "That was a contraction." I breathed out through gritted teeth. "Oh primus." I groaned, dropping my head on his shoulder, trusting Ironhide to get us back to the group. "That's one hell of a contraction. That really, really hurts." My stomach burned unhappily, and I dared to lift my head again and listen for the thing following us as the contraction passed, taking with it my lack of hearing. It was gone, seemingly having gotten lost, and as a delayed reflex lost to the pain, I heard the delayed snap of a leg bone breaking and the sound of a body hitting the floor. "Did we lose it?"

"Yep. It's leg fell off." Ironhide replied, not even sounding winded even though he was still charging full speed down the hall. "We're almost there. Apparently they had to move back again, because there's another swarm. Now that we're far from the entrance where you decided to get holed up, they come in waves of a hundred or so. It takes them longer because they have to climb over the dead bodies piling up." He gave a grunt, landing hard apparently as the jarring feeling shook me like a broken rag-doll. "How are you holding up?"

I grunted softly in irritability. "Still blind, still with a broken leg, and still in labor while being bounced around like a human in a flash flood. How do you _think_ I'm holding up, Ironhide?" I gave a soft cry as he brushed past a pile of bodies, and my foot got caught on it, jarring the broken leg back. "That just made my day even better," I commented with cross and dry sarcasm.

"I see your sarcasm and viper tongue still aren't damaged at all." Ironhide said dryly.

"Fuck you."

"And neither is your vocabulary, apparently."

I said nothing. Dropping my head back to his shoulder with a bang, and groaned. Another tightening rolled past my stomach, fizzing out my audio receptors briefly. I couldn't help the soft keening whine that slipped past my vocal processor, the way my body hunched over my distended stomach in Ironhide's tight but gently sturdy grip. Faintly, I heard Ironhide say something, but I couldn't really hear him. When the contraction passed, I tuned my audio receptors to his voice. "Did you say something?" just a ways down the hall in front of us, I could hear fighting. Then I realized he was standing still.

"Yes." He answered gruffly. "We're here, but I'm going to need to break through the line of Deceptions. I can't leave you to walk on your own, not with a broken main structure in your leg, and certainly not in the early stages of labor." I heard him huff. "Alright. Curl your frame as tight as you can." I did, though I couldn't go very tight, even with my slowly increasing flexibility. My stomach got in the way. "Okay, that's not going to work. Here, we'll just do this." I felt him shift me around so I was chest to chest with him. He curled my legs around his waist; my knee still usable since it was midway down my shin that was broke, and hooked my arms under his under arms. Due to the fact that his chassis was bulky, bulging out farther then even mine did due to the fact he had such thick armor, my stomach tucked safely between our bodies.

I found myself tilted down slightly and pressed my face to his chest plates. "Alright, brat." His arms acted as living shields for my back, squishing my door wings flat against my frame. "I'm going to run, and your going to stay safe and tucked right there, alright? Keep your head tucked, antennas down, and be prepared to use your claws as much as you can if I get stopped. Are you ready?"

Swallowing dryly, I nodded. "As ready as I'm ever going to be."

"Good, kid." Ironhide chuckled. As I found my face almost squished by the pressure with which Ironhide held me, I felt him start to run, the heavy 'clomp, clomp, clomp' of his feet sounding like a beating drum. When he hit the wall of Deceptions, I heard the mighty crunch of the inadequate armor of the polluted drones as they were met with a blind collision with a living, breathing, running tank without the tank barrel. I was jostled this way and that, my legs getting scratched up and splattered with more Dark energon as the 'Cons clawed at my savior and me. Through the cracks in Ironhide's arm defense, the Dark energon crept in, dribbling down my back and into my wires, burning like hellfire through my veins. I could hear shouting from various recognizable bots, but the roar of the Decepticon bodies clashing with Ironhide's droned out my ability to tell just who was speaking at the time.

"Clear a path! I see Ironhide! He's carrying someone!"

"Ironhide! Nightstrider!"

"Someone get the damn path open! Tackle the mother fragging bastards if you need to! He has precious cargo in his grasp! Get them back!"

Ironhide lost his footing as something hit us from the front, and he slid sideways, fighting for traction on the energon slick tiles. I shuddered, feeling the vertigo of falling but being unable to see where I was. Whatever had initially hit us kept shoving, and we kept sliding in whatever direction that Ironhide was tumbling.

"They're knocking him over! Primus damn it, if he hits the ground, they're both screwed! Magnus! Magnus! MAGNUS DAMN IT! Toss me out there!" Something whizzed through the air, something not necessarily large, and knocked back whomever was unbalancing Ironhide. There was a familiar feminine voice, and now that it was close, I could tell who it was immediately. "Ironhide! Get her to Ratchet." Chromia ordered loudly. "I'll keep you covered! Shit, what the hell is wrong with her leg? Never mind, tell me when we're safe, and she's safe."

Once he had his footing again, Ironhide plowed on, Chromia's lighter footsteps keeping close and keeping any pile-driving cons from knocking Ironhide back off of his feet. Unfortunately, another contraction rolled by, and I had to force my body not to let go of Ironhide to clutch at the agony in my middle, though the effort left me feeling weak and tired. It took all I had not to just fall limp and let myself be squished into a pile of pregnant goop. Apparently, with the sudden lack of shoving and sound of metal clashing on metal next to my ear, we had reached safety.

I was unwrapped from my position, my limbs falling limp like noodles because of my lack of vigor in moving them, and I heard a gasp of fear and fright from somewhere to my right. Leo called out softly to me as Ironhide shifted my limp form onto something I recognized as a medical bed. "Sister?"

Someone grabbed my face, someone I hadn't heard approaching, or hadn't been listening for, and I jerked. "Easy, easy, its just me." Chromia murmured. "Primus, Nightstrider, what happened to your optics?" She gently grasped my chin and tilted it this way and that. "They're completely black. I've never seen anything like this, at least not in living bots." She let out a soft click. "Ratchet is fetching Moonracer, and then he'll be here. She got tugged out beyond our boundaries. When he gets here, we'll have him take a look. First Aid isn't experienced enough to know this stuff, and he's busy tending to Leadfoots missing hand. Your leg?"

"Dark energon." I answered stiffly. "I'm blind, Chromia." I shifted uncomfortably. "The main frame of my leg is broken, about mid shin level." I answered her other question. Giving a hiss, I pressed a hand to the lower region of my stomach plattings, the smooth extra armor there making it hard to relieve the pain. "I'm blind, gimped up, numb and in pain from all the dark energon and to top it off, I'm going into labor."

I felt Chromia's hand gently prod my stomach. "I can't feel anything under these plates. Where did they come from? I doubt you'd have picked such a gaudy color as neon pink for extra protection plates." Neon pink? What the fuck!

"I didn't used to have them. I prayed to Primus to protect everyone and my sparklings, and then, boom, as soon as one con got close to my stomach, these plates slid down. As for the color; I'm blind. I didn't even know they were neon pink."

There was a hopping sound, and then I felt Leo's large yet small and slightly soft hand grasp mine, the part untouched by Dark energon because my gun had been blocking the way. "Sis? Why are your optics dark? Are you alright?"

Chromia answered for me, as my wings stiffened, the first waves of another contraction rolling through. "She's been blinded by the Dark energon… And she's in labor. Get back in bed, Leo, you have one fucking foot. Off you hop; get." My back arched slightly, and I turned on my side, my hands freeing themselves from Leo and coming to curl around my stomach. I moaned in pain, the burning sensation hurting much worse them a clip of bullets bouncing around inside of my human body had. Not as bad as dieing, but it still hurt. Chromia pressed her hands to my lower back, applying pressure to some of my pain relieving receptors. She avoided the scarred metal from when I had died in Egypt, the wound still fresh in its own ways. "This is too early." My audios hadn't faded to static. Bonus for me.

"Early?" I heard Leo ask. "You mean her sparkling is going to be premature?" There was a hitch in his voice. Fear. For my sparklings and myself. For his family.

Chromia thrummed loudly, louder then the fighting far behind us. "Yes, unless Ratchet can get over here and stop it. In a fighting zone like this, as tainted as it is, if the sparkling is born now, it will be poisoned by the Dark energon and die."


	102. Unknown Soldier

(_**Heya folks! Well, I have an apology to Araytigre, who is actually a guy. Whoops. :P Figured I'd announce it, though, since I had privately apologized.**_

_**Anyway, folks, here is the next chapter for ya~ Not much happens hear except some nast stuff that is told by a blind bot. My apologies if its short; its actually surprisingly easy yet frustratingly hard to write from the view of someone who is blind. **_

_**I have officially decided that any spelling mistakes you may perceive through out the whole damn story are now PrimeStarscream's fault. He's always here to keep me company, ether doing Yoga on my notebook, or trying to get me to look away so he can steal my tea. Buggart.**_

_**Anyways, enjoy 102!**_

_**Sorry if it's short. I exhausted myself last night writing up the epilogue; my emotions are rung. The next chapter will make up for it hopefully.**_)

I shuddered as I laid there, my stomach plattings contracting every few minutes. The fighting hadn't ended since we got here, and Chromia had left me because she had gone ten minutes ago to get Ratchet. Apparently, he and MoonRacer had gotten themselves lost in the mob of Deceptions, and, despite their frantic scrambles and fighting to get back, they were trapped. Leo had scooted his bed near mine, and was helping me try and mop off the Dark energon. By now, my body, save my stomach, was numb with the tainted liquids power, so I had trouble guiding my hands to the right spots. My optics didn't help ether. Being blind means it's harder to clean yourself, contractions and numbness just adding to the mess of the whole thing. According to my nose, Leo had with him some water, from where he got it with only one foot, I will never know. Velocity was acting as another companion for me, though she was also keeping track of the humans and her brothers, and my littlest brother as well.

I hissed, my back going ridged and my cleansing of myself halting to a dead stop, and a contraction rolled over my frame. Leo patted my hand comfortingly. "Is there anything I can do, Sis?" He gently massaged the armor on my hand, holding me grounded in a way as the throbs of pain echoed down my stomach and up my chest into my spark casing, where my spark was madly beating to match the pain it felt.

I shook my head. "No, no. Just… stay with me." I let out a puff of air, wincing as I felt my sparkling move into position. A thought crossed my mind, and I reached for my mates bonds. They were still there, and they filtered some of my pain, but they were ultimately too busy with something. Sunstreaker was slightly lost to the dark side, his inner gladiator that I had experienced in our spark merges, and Sideswipe was busy keeping his brother from attacking more then just enemy troops. "Where are Sunstreaker and Sideswipe?"

Leo resumed scrubbing my thigh plating, where a large spot had apparently accumulated. He nudged me back down, and told me to just relax and go with the flow while he helped me for once. Once I had obligingly leaned down and laid back, letting him take over cleaning what he could se and what I could not, then he humored me with an answer. "I don't know." He answered simply. "They had gotten up to go fight, stating they were tired of laying around. They shouldn't have, but they did so anyways, shortly after you got separated."

I sighed. "They were gladiators back in the golden days of Cybertron. The wounds they suffered there leave what they have now as nothing but a pale comparison. But, they never lost. Death came to those who lost."

"Share their memories, did you?" He asked dryly.

"Yes." I answered back. I flinched when I heard a guttural roar from one of the Autobots, though I didn't know which one. "Who was that?"

"That was my Papa." Velocity answered. She scooted up next to me, I heard her feet scuffle, and started cleansing my cheeks with a soft and damp cloth of some kind and make. "He got kicked in the interface rod. He isn't happy."

There was the sound of claws on the floor, before a femme spoke. "Damn right he isn't. That big brute out there kicked him. If I were him, I'd be on my knees bawling." I felt her set a hand on the mound of my belly, and heard little Starwhip clicking curiously. "How do you feel?"

"Numb." I answered. "Numb, and in pain. A bit of an oxymoron, eh?"

She chuckled. "Indeed. There's not a whole lot you can do about it though; I know what your going through."

Leo moved his cleaning down to my leg, the wheels on the medical berth he was seated on squalled harshly when he rolled forwards a bit more, propelling himself on his single leg. "I doubt it, Whiplash. No one really knows what goes on inside my sister helm; sometimes not even herself."

My back arched slightly with the next contraction, and I threw my head back with a strangled groan, my hands closing around the edged of the berth. "Oh, Primus." I shuddered. "God, this hurts." Velocity gently stroked my cheek, making soothing sounds that she had probably learned from her mother. She continued to clean off my faceplates. The hand on my stomach gently kneaded it, soothing the thick plates to relax back out of a contraction. I fell back limp, venting harshly.

"Your mates should be here." I heard the harsh scalding tone in her voice. "What kind of mates leave their femme in labor and alone?" there was a kind of vehemence in her voice, as if she had seen femmes abandoned by their mates to have sparklings on their own.

"The kind who are soldiers, fighting for our child to be born." I said stiffly. Velocity was drawn back from where she had been cleaning, and then the sound of Starwhip's clicks was near my ear. The little mech sounded curious, and I could even hear his little wings twitching against his back plattings. He played with a piece of Velocities armor, his little sparkling fingers and easily entertained mind found the simple 'cling, clink' noise it made to be quite amusing, as his giggles gave claim too.

"Watch him for me, Velocity. I have two bottles of Mustard and Ketchup to find."

I shot out my hand and snagged her somewhere on her arm as Velocity went wordlessly to put Star whip down. "You don't have to do this, Whiplash. Your neutral now, not Autobot or Decepticon."

Practically I could hear her arch an eyebrow at me as the slightly snide tone took up residence in her voice. "Who's to say I haven't decided to be an Autobot for a while?" while I said nothing, she sighed and tugged gently from my grip. "You kept Chromia from filling us with holes, you kept me and my sparkling alive, and then went on to deliver the same sparkling not a couple hours later. I owe you something, don't I?"

I screwed up my face, my antennas twitching. "I have too many bots who feel they owe me a life debt. I need to stop saving them." I seriously did. Starscream seemed to have felt like he owed me for his mate and sparklings lives, as well as his own as Chromia had seemed rather intent on blowing out his processor because of who he was, without ever really thinking on why he had been there in the first place. Whiplash seemed to have the same notion in her helm, driving me bonkers with it, and then there was Ironhide. Ironhide, I had saved, and as he had proclaimed earlier, felt he owed me something. It was unsaid but kind of noticeable to me that Velocity felt the same way, though she hid it much better then her parents. Chromia seemed to have the same notion as well, but simply paid it off with simple tasks, like walking with me in the woods, and perhaps later in the future, when me and the twins would need to get away, she could watch the sparkling for us.

"Then you wouldn't be you." Whiplash answered honestly, the truth of her words hitting me like a freight train. "Now, I'll fetch your berth-buddies, and you just stay here, alright?"

I arched a brow in her general direction, shifting uncomfortably in my laying down position. My toe twitched as Leo cleaned it off, the sensors ticklish slightly. He seemed intent on tickling me for a moment, until I felt my claws slide out just slightly. Then he sighed and went back to cleaning, digging out gunk in the plates, and bits of whatever I had unfortunately stepped on. "Oh? Wont Starscream be angry?"

Again, the snide sarcasm practically dripped like frothing bears saliva from her voice. "What he doesn't know doesn't hurt him." I could no longer hear her over the fighting, and I didn't care too as another contraction hit. I breathing and out heavily, Leo stopping long enough to lean back and give me a hand to hold.

When it passed, leaving me exhausted and irritable afterwards, Leo thrummed from down near my ankles. "You know, for a bot that I don't know very well, I like her."

"You like everyone, Leo." I quipped. "What makes her so special?"

His displeasure of my accusation rolled over the bonds. "I'm going to excuse your snide tone because you're hurt, blind, and having a sparkling. Contrary to what you just claimed, no, I don't like everyone. Blurr and Mirage are on my shit list for various reasons I am not inclined to tell you." I could just imagine the scowl that crossed his face. Perhaps it did, perhaps it didn't. "As for what makes her special, well, she's the only newer bot who's ever bothered flicking as much shit at you as you fling on her. Its like star-wars, only shit-wars instead. Get what I'm saying?"

My audios twitched, sensing something big barreling through the line of fighting bots. "I suppose. Who's that coming through the crowd?"

"Papa with Ratchet slung in potato sack fashion." Velocity answered. I heard and felt her slip back down next to me and finish cleaning my face. I jerked my broken leg away from Leo's touch with a growl and a whine. His hands had started to clean the damaged plates, but the mainframe had ended up shifting and grinding painfully together. "Careful Leo. Remember, her shin's broken, so you have to treat it gently like I did for you earlier."

"Right. Sorry Sis." He apologized. His hands gently took my leg back and straightened it before he deftly delved his fingers into the crevices of the warped and broken metal. I felt the gunk be removed rather quickly. Leo was careful to avoid jostling my leg, and when he finished with the sensitive, he cleaned all the way up my other leg too.

"You know," I gritted out, my body seizing up in a contraction again. The pain was lessoned, drawn away by the twins who had apparently been found by Whiplash already. They must not have been far. Or, she was fast. "If it weren't for the fact we're in the middle of a bloody battle, and that I'm in pain, I'd say I was being pampered at a spa."

"At a spa you are not, Nightstrider." Ratchet grumbled. There was a thud, and I realized the fighting was dwindling. "Lay Moonracer over there. She just needs to rest; she's never been good with endurance." More shuffling of feet. A set approaching us now, not as heavy as Ironhide but not as light at Sunstreaker's. "Leo, Velocity, good job helping decontaminate her. She's clean enough now that she should be alright, and so should the sparkling. Now, can you show me where you got that water? Point me in the right direction perhaps? I need to decontaminate myself, as does anyone else who plans on getting close to her any time soon."

It almost sounded like a herd of elephants heading towards wherever Leo had pointed them. Velocity had set in to scrubbing the energon from my chest plates, deftly using her fingers to dive into crevices and pull out globs of dried and gooey dark energon. I could hear the sounds of whomever hadn't left to clean up sounding like they were stacking something. "What are the others doing?" I asked softly.

"Stacking up the bodies." Velocity answered. "They make good barricades, and if you can pile enough of them up, they block the hallways. We'll have a while yet before the next wave finds us though, so we can all rest." She gently tapped my right breastplate. "Shift this back for me please. Its in the way of a blob of some nasty gunk I cant reach." I did as she asked, and she was quick to remove it and let me fix my chest plate again.

Ratchet was back not much later, shooing Velocity away so she could go and help Leo clean each other up, as one only had one foot and could only hop from place to place. A large hand I recognized as my fathers sidled up on my fight and gently held my right hand. He squeezed softly, letting me know he was there. Over our bond, as Ratchet checked me out down below, Papa told me that Mama was busy helping do field repairs where she could, and that she was sorry she wasn't there. I didn't need him to tell me, I could feel her sorrow and plead for forgiveness at not being there at the time. She didn't need forgiveness; there was nothing wrong to forgive.

"Well," Ratchet tsked from between my legs, which were propped up on a set of stilt like things that extended from the bottom of the berth; something that made Ratchets job much easier to do. "Your too far along into your contractions for us to stop it. Your sparkling is already starting to come into sight. Your fully dilated, so on the next contraction, push."

I scowled. "Not until Sunstreaker and Sideswipe are here. I can feel them; they're almost here with Whiplash."

"Crazy bastards;" Ratchet harrumphed. "They shouldn't be out of bed and yet they're running back here from somewhere they shouldn't have been in the first place. They'll have to de-contaminate themselves immediately before I let them anywhere near you." I felt his hands gently feeling around inside me, checking for any snag ups. "For a sparkling that's a month or so premature, this one seems like a pretty normal sized sparkling."

I grunted at the feeling, my stomach spasming as another contraction threatened to roll by. "That's good, right?" of its own accord, my hand tightened around Optimus's and I braced myself, my lower regions throbbing in time with the pulse of my spark. I panted, my chest heaving as I inhaled through stalling vents.

"Yes, but it also means that ether you were pregnant for longer then we thought, or…" Ratchet paused. "You're having twins."

Two set of feet thundered past us, where there had been water sounds earlier when Ratchet was cleaning himself. The snarky femme from earlier clicked past us and chuckled. "They already know they have to clean up. You might want to step back, Prime. They're on a rampage, and wont stop until they're next to her side." Whiplash strolled away, probably to pick up Starwhip.

"Hmm." Optimus rumbled. "Alright. Nightstrider, I will see you soon, all right? Just lean on the bond if you need too; I'll give any support I can. You know. From over there, where I'm out of the way, and where I don't have to see places of my daughter a father should never see past the age where they can bathe themselves."

I clenched my hand around his briefly. "Alright Papa. You'll be a grandpa soon enough, so hope your ready."

He stroked the back of my hand, and I heard the water shut off, followed by frantic but thorough drying of cloth on damaged metal armor. "Alright. Here they come now." Not moments after Papa let go, going off to help Elita with field repairs before we were over run again, my hands were taken once more. The rough and damaged texture and exterior of each hand made it hard to decipher who was who, but the loving and concerned voices on sides told me who was who.

From my right came Sideswipe. "What's wrong? Why are you in labor? Its too early!"

"Ratchet says the sparkling looks fine. He says its normal sized, so there might be another stuffed up in my gestational chamber somewhere." I informed him. My hands ached to tighten over theirs, but I didn't, even as a smaller miniature contraction rolled over me. I didn't want to damage their hands further.

"Your optics… Primus… Why are they black?" Sunstreaker asked, his hand stroking my face.

"I am blind due to the Dark energon." I said stiffly. "Now, ask me about my health later."

"We have a sparkling or two to deliver." Ratchet informed us. "Push now, Nightstrider. This sparkling needs to come out before it gets hung up on something and tears something important." I took no other words and I pushed, tightening the area where my diaphragm would be, much like going to the bathroom. Only it hurt much worse. The crowning wasn't too bad, a ring of flames in the numbness that the dark and tainted blood had brought about, but once it came to the shoulders, I couldn't help but cry.

If you were to try swallowing a watermelon whole, succeed, only for what goes in must come out to take effect, then perhaps you would know the sensation I had to go through. Not only were the shoulders on my sparkling wide, the armor black and yellow according to Ratchet, but the sweet little pain in the aft also seemed to have inherited my door wings. The tiny door nubs, not large enough to be a problem, but not small enough that they did not cause a lot of pain for me, were apparently as large as three of the sparklings fists.

Soon, though, Ratchet drew back with a very squirmy, very squally sparkling in his arms. I was given a short reprieve, and my body had sagged back tiredly as I stared up a something but nothing. Sunstreaker sent me a picture over our bond, seen through his very own eyes, and, despite all the nasty goop on it, a little girl I realized, it was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. She had Sunstreaker's audio fins, my antennas on top of her helm, and had the most adorable little random edgings of yellow along her sparkling plates, like the kindling that starts the flames. She took my breath away, though that was for a limited time until I had to push again.

We named her Nightlife, for the amazing set of vents on her that would surely keep us awake for many a night, and for the darkness of her armor that had in a way given me part of my name.

Optimus came back over, per my and the twins hasty request, and became the first bot outside of the medic's hands to hold my daughter. Sunstreaker gave me the image of the way my Papa's face lit up as he held her, how he looked at her just like had had to me when I had first cooed and accepted the sparkling energon from him so long ago. He was a grandfather, and no one was going to take that joy away from him any time soon, even the rapidly approaching wave of Decepticons.

My attention was drawn else where as I forced myself not to crush my mate's hands as I pushed again. It would seem, that there was a surprise sparkling on the way. Good thing the bed at home was big enough for all of us. As the wall of Deceptions hit our tiring defenses, the second sparkling crowned between my legs. As the war raged on around us, I bore down in my own personal war against my tiring body, determined to expel my other sparkling. It was that need to give my sparkling a fighting chance at life instead of waiting and resting longer that drove me on.

When the first ring of fire passed, the second and worse one began. This one as well inherited my wings, though this one had larger ones then its sister. It made no noise, even as it stared up at Ratchet, so he said. Ratchet told us that the sparkling was a bright red, almost as deep as Sideswipe's paint, but would most likely darken with age. He said that the sparkling stared up at him with a tired and cranky look at Sunstreaker had given him many a time, and, as he pulled that one from between my legs as well, that she was a beautiful example of another set of twins to grow up like their fathers. Where in my mates were male, our twin children were both female.

Rouge. The cherry skin red little femmeling, who had been laid in my arms, had been dubbed Rouge, after the make up that women would sometimes wear. Rouge made not a peep, only settled down to sleep in my arms, a permanent scowl seemingly etched onto her face. I didn't care if I had a scowl-filled sparkling, or a happy sparkling. I loved them both dearly. Sideswipe let me watch it all unfold in video feed form from his optics. I was left tired, but in awe. Happy. I was happy.

Papa handed Nightlife over to Sunstreaker so that he could go help his troops fight off the slowly dwindling forces, and I relinquished Rouge to Sideswipe because I needed to rest. Holding the sparklings in one of their arms, safely tucked behind the warped but still strong metal that armored their frames as the still looping video feed from Sideswipe showed, they leaned over and kissed my cheek as Ratchet was kind and cleaned me up, much to my embarrassment. "They are beautiful." Sideswipe whispered softly to me. "You are beautiful. So magnificent."

"So very magnificent." Sunstreaker agreed. "You are a magnificent and beautiful creature, Nightstrider. Amazing. You brought to life such beautiful works of art, or new life."

I smiled tiredly, my optics staring at nothing but the video looping through my helm. "You helped me make them. It's not art if it doesn't have all the puzzle pieces." I said softly.

"Rest, love. We'll spend hours with them when you wake up, alright?"

I almost nodded, but I paused. The fighting had just suddenly stopped. "What's happened? Why did the fighting stop?"

"**I am truly sorry, child, that you**__**had to be blinded. It was the cost for the extra protection for your sparklings, and your friends, whom I knew you would ask for protection for. But, worry not; as soon as we return to your planet earth, your medic Ratchet can replace your optics. It is not permanent.**" Primus said. Sideswipe's vision turned to look at the giant robot, which had shrunk himself down to fit in the room. Besides looking tired and worn, with a few missing bits of armor centered around his stomach, hips, feet and face, Primus looked just fine. Only one thing bothered me, and that was the slightly haunted look in his optics. There was energon, his and the dark energon of his brother, splattered all across his armor. He was looking in our direction, ignoring the bots around his feet. There were no more bodies, as they were disappearing into clouds of dust like particles.

"Its alright. Anything for friends and family." I said.

In Sideswipe's vision, he frowned. "**Somehow, I knew you would say that. Now, are you ready to go home with your sparklings and your friends and family now? Only three of your earth days have passed in the outer world. Everyone is quite worried for you.**"

I nodded tiredly, and then grimaced as Ratchet suddenly snapped my leg mainframe back into place and started binding it together with something that my metal recognized as a tightening adhesive that acted like a bandage, a brace, and a cast all at once, only on the Cybertronian grid. My leg was too numb now for me too feel much, but then and again, jubilation and love for my family was overriding everything at the moment. "I would love too." I said. "But I have one question."

He cast us an uneasy glance that had Sideswipe's optics focusing on just his face. Primus walked forwards, bots and humans scrambling out of his way. He stopped some fifty odd feet from us, though it was off because Sideswipe's vision was different from mine. Talk about seeing from another point of view. "**Yes. Ask away.**"

"What did you do with your brother?"

He frowned again. "**Unicron will no longer bother anyone again. He is sealed away in a sub pocket of space where even I have trouble entering and leaving. With me guarding it, he can no longer harm anything beyond himself and Galvatron, who I have locked away with him. Now, since I have satisfied your curiosity, how about we go to the base once more, and we let everyone watch your life story from start until now on my nifty portable pool of sacred destinies?**"

"You mean your peeping pool."

He sighed angrily, and Sideswipes vision cut out as he figured out the video had still been going. "**Yes, my peeping pool.**"


	103. Weep Not For The Memories

(_I know its short, but I sat here and cried through the whole damn thing. Six rolls of paper towels later, and this is what you get. I can't believe its come to the end… so much has happened, so many roller coasters. I'm going to demand that you listen to "I Will Remember You" by Sara McLaughlin. Its been a journey folks, and I'm going to miss you all terribly until I come up with a idea for a story. Later. Gah. I need a break now. Too much emotion in this chapter._

_**Also, any mistakes are because I quite literally cried through the whole chapter.**_

_**One hundred and two chapters, one hundred and three if you count the special Halloween interlude, and this is how far we have come. It's the end of the road, folks. I'm sorry to say that, but Nightstrider's journey has come to an end. I suppose after a couple of weeks of planning, I'll start up another story. This one, though, will mean a lot too me. This story, I kid you not, just started out as some random muse. I figured I'd lose interest fast, by like, chapter five, but no. I've started a new trend, have inspired a few new stories, and managed to delve myself so deep into my love of Transformers that I cannot seem to claw back out. It still boggles my mind, when I imagine how close we are to having come to the one-year anniversary of this fiction. Well, enjoy I guess. I'll see you all whenever I make another fiction, hopefully something that no one else has done as well.**_

_I'd love to see some fan art of the ending of this chapter though, before the dotted line end. The cuddly bit, if anyone can do it. I can't draw, or I would. This is something I would love to see drawn._)

Primus did in fact tell them the whole story of my life, human and otherwise. It arose no problems, and everyone seemed generally ether awed, or not at all surprised. The not at all surprised one had been Ironhide. They even got to see my whole life on tape, via the nice pool that Primus gathered with a magical mumbo jumbo poof of dramatic smoke for everyone to gaze into.

My eyesight was returned to me through the replacement of my optics, and I was given the chance to gaze upon my sparklings for myself. They were even more beautiful with my own eyes the through the eyes of my mates and family. The way my daughters would look up and smile at me and giggle and coo when I did something silly, or give me disgruntled looks when I did something less then desirable would always be burned into my memories. They brought such joy to my life, and I was with a full family for the first time. I had my children, my husbands, adopted parents who loved me, and brothers who loved me just as much. I was happy, and nay a tear was shed for many a year.

Nightlife grew to be a lot more like me then I thought, slightly in attitude, though that was mostly Sideswipes attitude. She took my alt mode, and showed a love for the outdoors that rivaled Hounds and mine. While I was black with multi hued flames, she chose the same sunshine yellow for her flames as the color Sunstreaker did for his whole body. She inherited Sunstreaker's looks. Rouge was different. She took after Sideswipe in looks, though both girls got my door wings, and had the attitude of her Sunflower Father before he got himself bonded. They grew to be as tall at their fathers, got my claws, and got their swords. Life was good. All of us were happy.

But that was long ago, much to long ago for most memories to keep track of. Mine did, though. It always did…

Tonight, though, I want to cry. I don't really know why. After so many years and so many friends lost and remaining only as memories, you would think I had cried out all of my tears. But no; I still have some energon tears left in my crusted old face. Hm… Perhaps crusted is not the correct term. I don't look as if I've aged at all on the outside, my armor still strong and thick as ever, the dull black paint and faded flames the only sign of my age. I never got myself a Cybertronian alternate mode. My form was one of the final reminders of my human life, besides my memories. My joints are as healthy as the day that my body stopped itself from aging, the day that the best medic in the whole race of Cybertronians passed into the matrix, following his long lost mate. Cybertronian paint lasts a long time, longer then most of us are ever expected to live. Long past the end of earth, the fall, and rebirth of a race. Too bad that it only lasts for so long, like life is supposed to.

In 2056, William Lennox passed with Sarah Lennox quietly in his sleep, and following his death was Epps, and many more. Eventually, all we were left with was their descendants. Annabelle had six beautiful boys, and Samuel got married to Carly. Much to Bumblebee's devastation, he was killed in a car accident with Carly and left an orphaned six year old daughter named Nicole in the custody of his guardian. After that long, we were fully recognized as planetary citizens, and had been since not long after the defeat of Unicron and saving of the planet once more. Mikaela never got married; She adopted a young girl and a boy, raised them both, and then passed away in her sleep at the age of 89 with one of her children staying with her in case. Simmons got together with Charlotte Mearing, but both died after five years of marriage. One from cancer, the other of heartbreak.

Planet Earth lasted longer then I figured it would. But, ultimately, long after we had managed to establish and start building our own planet much like Cybertron, Earth began to crumble. It was in the year 9872AD, which the first fissure of the planets eminent eruption started to form. We Cybertronians took the people selected for us to save, some six hundred thousand families from every country, nation, and place in the world, and many pairs of whatever animals had not gone extinct, along with supplies and various plant species, and put them in a habitat that I had the pleasure of helping build. It was a fake earth, on our very own planet, and had every habitat available. There was a fake sun, designed by Wheeljack and me. I remember fondly when we first finished it. Such joy there had been. I digress, it seems. All those supposedly hidden super volcanoes scattered through out the earths crust erupted all at once. We watched helplessly from afar as the whole planet self destructed and then collapsed in on itself, helpless against its own gravity.

From there, our Planet continued to grow. As it turned out, there were far more Cybertronians then we first thought. With the peace and reunion between the factions, the work was shared, and we built Autocon-Prime, built in the between area of the space between earth and Cybertron. We had our own sun and moon, and due to some generators and plants, our own oxygen too. Now, to say that peace was fully assured would be a lie. There were few Decepticons who still supported the ways of Megatron, and had gone on with their ways. But, we, the peaceful Autobots as everyone, ex-cons too, had come to keep calling ourselves, vastly out numbered them, one to a hundred easily. But, with the rebellions, it always brings prices. Almost everyone is gone. The first to perish had been Mudflap and Skids, who were recognized as heroes for selflessly giving their lives for a tiny red-eyed sparkling who had been in the way of an incoming missile. The next to follow had been my own mother.

Elita had died the way she had lived, a warrior and a mother. She had been shot down while trying to help one of her grandchildren, a seeker as they had a daughter who mated with Starwhip, the first and only child of Whiplash and Starscream, get their wing unstuck from under a pile of rubble. Mom died without regrets. Papa mourned her, so did I and everyone who knew her for who she was, and clung to his remaining family all that much harder. Leo went on to become the next Prime, and Papa came to live in the same block as us. Leo ended up mating to Velocity, and had a whole slew of children.

My own twins, they hitched up with Alpha and Beta. It had been many years since my last sparkling, my fifty-eighth, had passed into the matrix. Ironhide passed on not long after Chromia had her last sparkling, having died to keep a rebel Decepticon bomb from taking out half of Primeceon, the main city in which we most lived in. My family were not amongst the living there; we live in a town that I helped make; Oremus. Named after my home state, and after the bot that brought me back to it after I died the first time. Chromia died after her last sparkling got her mate, the very night after in fact.

My father had died not quite just yet a million years ago, and the wound was still raw. He had died with me on the couch, holding my hand as I leaned on his shoulder and we watched some old earth movies. He had talked to me like he was going to be all right, had told me that he loved me and looked forwards to doing a movie night again, maybe having the Twins there this time too. Papa had said that it always brightened his day and made his life a little more worth it. I told him I loved him lots, and then he had been gone. Just like that. No warning, no nothing. Just gone. I had been weeping like sparkling when I carried his body down to the med bay for Ratchet to examine. It had been the longest walk of my life, right up there to having to carry one of my sparklings to Ratchet because some 'Con rebel had put a plasma blast through my little StreamDancer's chassis. She too, died in my arms.

Leo and Velocity passed on peacefully, passing on Leo's prime genes to his youngest daughter, Turbulence. Turbulence passed hers on to another daughter, and that daughter to another son who took the name Orion Pax, after the great Optimus Prime, who never got to meet me. Slowly, I began to fade from the generations' memories. The only thing that they remembered was that it was a femme who was supposed to grow to be the oldest alive, and then die once she was forgotten. But, I wont ever truly be forgotten. Something nice and tidy left in the back of one of my cubbies, designated somewhere in my will to go to my descendant Orion Pax, who was related by my father side, though we weren't blood.

Wheeljack met his end in a laboratory explosion, having had been trying to make a special crib for one of his many great grandchildren. Not many mourned him, but I did. I always do.

The last to die, not including my mates and after all of the bots I grew to love and know had long passed, had been Ratchet. Far back on earth, just before the end of it, Ratchet gave me all of his medical knowledge, which I downloaded onto a data pad so I had it for others to read as well as in my memories. Ratchet had hung on, long passed the death of Moonracer, saying he needed to teach the new generations how to be medics. He did, in fact. He put out six thousand bots with almost all of his skill, but they lacked the sheer talent that had made him the best medic I had ever known. The old bastard though, you know what he did the day before he seemed to know he was going to die? He came up to me, and handed me the beat up and dirty Naruto plushy that my human friends and I had made for him so long ago. He told me that I better take care of the doll for him. He wouldn't need him later. That had been the last time I had ever talked to him.

Naruto sat on the shelf next to my storage dresser, where I would see him every day as I went to get data pads.

Sideswipe died too. He and Sunstreaker were having trouble keeping up with me now that the twins' one and only medic had been gone. Sideswipe had been going down hill faster then his brother, and was down to having to lean on us whenever we went out. He never lost his smile or that mischievous glint in his optics, like he knew something that we never would, even up until the day he could no longer move. He had said, as we lay there on our bed cuddling, that this was his last day. That had been three hundred thousand years ago. That is a long time. But he never truly left us, you see; His chest opened up just as his optics died out, and half of his spark left to merge with his brothers with the other half left to join the matrix with our children. Sideswipes' last gift to us was so that I wouldn't be alone for forever. After all, our vows from earth had said that whomever was left behind would always stay with the other. Sunstreaker has been with me since Sideswipes death. He's always in our memories and tucked into the forefronts of our minds. I still cry about him, even though he told me not to weep for my memories.

Lately, Sunstreaker hadn't been doing well. His joints were giving him much more trouble then normal, and no amount of medical work I did seemed to ease any of the pain. He hadn't been able to race in so many millennia, that his wheels had gone soft and flat. Sunstreaker can't change into his alternate mode any more ether. He hasn't been able to do that for ten years. He's suffering now, and I can't do anything about it. No amount of work can save him, now that he's been sleeping longer. It's only a matter of time. A fractured spark, even living on love, can only stay lit for so long. He is the last to truly know me well.

My tears slipped down my cheeks as I stood out on the balcony. It's late at night here, and I was watching the stars pass overhead slowly as the planet shifted and rotated. There was the creak of tired and worn joints, and I turned to catch Sunstreaker standing outside at the doors, leaning heavily on the double doorframe. His armor no longer shines with that same sunshine yellow luster; it hasn't the past few days. His optics are still bright, but I see him gazing off as if at nothing sometimes. He cast me a tired smile and crooked a tired finger at me, shuffling forwards with a limp. "Come here, Nightstrider."

I gave him a soft smile and moved to meet him, wrapping my arms gently around my love's waist. "Sorry, Sunstreaker. Did I wake you? I didn't mean too."

He gently reached up a hand to run his fingers over my antenna's, which wiggled at his touch. Then he stroked my audio horns. "No such thing, love." His legs creaked, and I supported a little bit more of his weight. "I was going to wake up anyways."

I chuckled softly and tiredly to him, the exhaustion in my voice not a physical one, but more a spiritual. I am old, and he is older still. "Come on, old man. You and me both know I woke you up when I got up."

"Old man my nice aft." Sunstreaker snorted softly but deeply into my ear. I rested my helm on his chassis after giving him a soft kiss, listening to his engine hum slowly, the gears turning ever slower with age. "Care to tell me why you are crying?" He gently tilted my helm so that he could wipe away a tear. "Can I make it go away?"

"No." more tears fell of their own accord. "Not this time. Memories can't fade with time, love. Not mine. You cant hide from them ether… I can't help weeping for my memories. It's so hard to remember them, it hurts so bad."

"Now, now, I know it hurts." He spoke softly to me and began to sway his body in a slow dance, a habit he and Sideswipe had taken up when our friends started dieing. When I would cry, they would dance with me, like my father had done at my wedding. I heard his joins creaking more, and started to try and wiggle away, to spare him the pain. He pulled me tight, the strength he rarely had the energy to show anymore shining through his frame. "Stop now, don't pull away." In a circle we turned slowly, orbiting like the planet.

"But this is hurting you, Sunstreaker. Stop, I'll be okay." I protested.

He tugged me gently over the bond, and then rumbled quietly in my ear. "Give me this one last dance. Please. Grace me with this one last gift besides the love that you hold in your spark for a crusty old gladiator like me." I started to cry again, the tears flowing harder. "Please don't cry. Don't cry for me."

"I love you too much not too." I sobbed silently. He simply held me until I had no more tears to cry, no more sobs to let out. Sunstreaker stood as my silent oak, once a part of my hammock hanging two; the only one left, and let me cry. He mopped away my tears with soft pained hugs, gentle and sweet kissed, and the soft continuous circle we kept swaying around in. The energon left tear tracks down my face, staining the metal. When there were no more tears to dry, the last saved for an event I knew to be in the fast coming, he kept twirling me around, swaying softly in the low moon lit light. When his legs creaked again, I stopped him and looked up at him. His optics looked so tired, worn down, and ready to just give up. But beyond that was the undying love that held us bound together, that kept his body chugging along at a snails pace to keep me from being left alone. "Lets go inside. I'm getting tired now."

He smiled at me and half way released me, gently keeping an arm over my shoulders. Sunstreaker gave me a wink, and a little flap of his audio fins. "No your not. But I thank you. As much as I enjoy dancing with you, it'll have to wait until morning comes. Then, I can get a better view of your lovely frame in the light."

"You old flirt." I said softly as we walked inside slowly. "My paint is faded, and you know it."

As we got to the bed, Sunstreaker flashed me one of his sexy grins that never failed to warm my spark. "I know. But I like it anyway. I love whatever you look like."

"You always say that."

"That's because it's always true."

"So you say, Sunstreaker." Gently, I helped him settle back into laying position before going around the other side of the bed and crawling in with him. I snuggled close, but not close enough that I couldn't angle my head up to look into his face, as he laid on his side and looped an arm over my waist. We laid there, on our sides, facing each other, just basking in each other's presence. He leaned his helm forwards and rested it on mine, and we settled down like that, just staring into each other's optics. "I love you, Sunstreaker. Primus, I love you so much."

He brought his arm up, his shoulder groaning, and stroked my cheek softly. "And I love you, Babe." His optics shuttered briefly and his body relaxed further. "I'm so tired, love…" He said softly, his deep blue optics opening to look at mine.

I reached a hand up to stroke his cheek. He tilted his helm into my palm and sighed softly, his optics fuzzing out a bit. "I am too…" I felt my optics water again, and bade them to stop before over flowing. "I know… Rest then, Sunstreaker. Rest, and get some sleep."

He cast hazy optics back to me. "I'll rest, but you have to rest too." He pulled me close, wrapping his arms around my back fully. He drew slow circles on the faded panels of my door wings, the rate of his movement slowing ever faster. "I love you, Nightstrider. You made my life worth living."

I couldn't help it. I started to cry again, though silently. "And you made mine worth living too. You and Sideswipe. Everyone did."

He let out an airy sigh. "We'll see them eventually." When his optics seemed to clear, he frowned at me. "I thought I asked you not to cry?"

I gave a small hiccupping dry laugh. "I can't help it. These are the last of my tears I have to weep with."

He sighed, and gave me a soft kiss. "I don't want to see you cry…"

"I'm sorry." I said softly. "I can't stop."

"Its alright. When I see you again, I expect not to see tears, you hear me?" he closed his optics, the glow of them shining out from under his metal lids. Sunstreaker sighed. "I'm going to go to sleep now, alright? No tears in the morning?"

"Good night, love." I said softly. "No more tears."

He sighed again, and I heard him click into sleep with a soft "Good." I watched him for a while, listening to his engine sputtering in his chest. My tears flowed even more, and then the engine started to slow, sputtering slowly to a stop. His optics started to fade to black, and I cried all the harder. Pressing my helm under his chin, I felt him tighten his arms around me. "Love you." Came over the bond, just before it disappeared.

My spark shattered, broken like a glass vase lost in a tornado of emotion. I sobbed these big body shaking sobs, my tears stopping soon after because I had no more to cry with. My sobs were dry as I cried on my mate. As his body started to cool, I whimpered and held him tighter, willing him to come back, to not leave me. The bond missing curdled and grew, paining my spark as it beat within my chest plates. I have no one anymore. No Papa, no Mama, no Leo, no Bo, no Sideswipe, and now no Sunstreaker. I'm all alone, left unwillingly here to rot in my despair.

"_**It's time to come home, Nightstrider.**_" A deep rumbling voice spoke in-between my sobs. "_**You've suffered enough. You have a couple of someone's here waiting for you.**_"

"He's gone!" I wailed. "They're both gone!"

"_**No they're not.**_" The voice soothed. "_**They're standing right here with me, waiting on you to join them now. Come, my child. It's time to come home, where you belong. Just close your eyes, and go to sleep. It'll all be all right. I promise.**_"

I dry sobbed again. Curling further closer to my mate, I settled my mouth on his for one last kiss. Then I tucked my helm under his again, and let myself lay with him, feeling his body heat leaving, and my own draining out with it as well. The misery faded slowly, leaving behind an exhausting numbness. I closed my optics, and, as the last tear I didn't know I had fell, I fell asleep.

…

I awoke lying in someone's arms. There was a bright yellow arm in my face, and another cherry skin red one next to my other side of my face. I blinked into awareness, and I was drawn up slowly. I realized I didn't feel heavy with age now, and there was no creaking from the bright yellow body on my right, or from the red on my left. I turned my head left, and found myself in awe at the beauty of the shit eating sexy grin on the mechs face.

"Welcome home, Princess. I've missed you a lot." Sideswipe said. He was ready when I lunged from Sunstreaker's arms and wrapped my own around him. He swung me around, and them met my mouth in a fevered kiss. His body was as strong and as youthful as it had been in his Prime. There were no creaking joints, no legs shaking with weakness. Just love and strength in the bond that was flowing back from all sides. Everyone I knew was in my spark, filling me with love. I could help it. A tear slid free. "No tears, no tears. You shed enough of them while alive." He wiped it free. "I've waited thousands of years, I don't want our first meeting to have tears."

"I told you no tears," Sunstreaker thrummed behind me. He stole me away from his brother and pressed a kiss to my lips. "Now, since we're the last three who haven't crossed over, why don't we go?"

I just realized we were in the realm where I ended up after Egypt. Limbo, as I had come to call it. I looked at Sideswipe. "You waited? All this time for us?"

Sideswipe smiled and hugged me, squishing me between the two brothers. "I would wait for you always, Princess." He stole me back from Sunstreaker. "She's mine for now. You've had her all to yourself for three hundred thousand years. You can have her later."

I smiled softly as they started walking me towards a bright light next to the pool where I had watched the living. I paused slightly, and they turned back to look when their hands were met with resistance to their gentle tugging. "What is it?" Sunstreaker asked.

I looked at the pool. "I need to check something really fast. Then we can go." I strode towards the pool, enjoying my rejuvenated body. When I got there, the twins trailing behind closely, I leaned over it and braced my hands on the rim. "Show me Orion Pax." I said.

The mirror rippled, and it showed the image of Orion pax, sitting in the seat his ancestor had once sat. He was the spitting image of Papa, strangely even with the diluted energon line. I knew, though, that he didn't have the soul of Papa reborn. I felt Papa here. Orion, down in the pool, was opening up the data pad that I had left to him. I guess they had found our bodies. Briefly, the pool sensed my wonderings and flicked over to look at our bodies. We were laid out in a special room; my body at Papa's feet with Sunstreaker's on my left and Sideswipe on my right. Elita was next to Papa, her hand clasped with his even in their dead state. Near the bottom of my feet was a plate that stretched from Sideswipes to Sunstreaker's feet, leaving me in the middle. Engraved on it, was "Last of the Legends of Old. Elders Sideswipe, Nightstrider, and Sunstreaker. May they be honored in death, as they were not rightfully done so in life." The pool flicked back to Orion, who was aptly reading the data pad I had sent for him to have.

I gave a small winning grin and left the pool, the twins following behind curiously. "What was that about?" Sideswipe asked. "Looking at Orion, that is."

I smiled. "I won."

Sunstreaker blinked. "Won? What exactly did you win?"

I smiled slyly as we stepped up to the light portal like thing. I grasp their hands in mine, tightly holding them. Further down, I could see my Papa waving at me to come join them. At his foot was my human mother, waving happily with my sparkling that had died as a sparkling propped up on her hip. Little Shadewind, the sweet femme who had been trampled in an ambush from Decepticons, waved happily at me. Next to my father was Elita. My adopted mother smiled and beckoned me forwards silently. Beyond them I could see everyone, human and otherwise that had earned their right to stay in the matrix.

Shifting, I gave each of them a loving smile; glad I was with them again, and for all eternity. "That nifty little data pad had the whole record of my life story written on it. I called it Grab It By The Horns. I was supposed to die after ever one who knew me had passed on. As soon as you died, I could pass on as well, because no one besides me knew about the book." As we stepped forwards into the light to begin crossing over, I tilted my head back and arched my door wings and antenna. "Did you hear that you old codger? I win! I did what you forbade me about!" I didn't hear a reply as I walked down the tunnel with Sunstreaker and Sideswipe bouncing giddily at my side. As we started to step through the seeming bubble that was in place keeping the world of the matrix from spilling into the limbo area, I heard a deep chuckle.

My hand slipped from Sunstreakers, I reached out to grab my Fathers outstretched hand. He guided us through, and then everything faded white.

"**I always knew you would, Nightstrider. You made your Grandpa very, very proud.**"


End file.
